
Copyright N^. 



COPyRIGHT DEPOSm 



/ 



Exodus, Moses 

and the 

Decalogue Legislation. ^ 

The Central Doctrine and Regulative 
Organum of Mosaism. 

Substantiating the Biblical Legislation, civil, political, agra- 
rian; and its Humanity, Benevolence and Charity 
Laws ; Universal Import and Analysis of the Ten 
Commandments in parallel with other Codes ; 
demonstrating prophetic Monotheism 
and its Ethics as the unique 
basis for civilized society. 



By MAURICE FLUEGEL. 
Baltimore, U. S. A. 

Author of: Religious Rites and Aspects; Biblical Legislation; 
Humanity, Benevolence and Charity Laws (of the Pentateuch and 
Talmud); Messiah Ideals, Vol. I, Jesus of Nazareth; Vol. II, Paul and 
New Testament; Mohammed and Qoran; Zend-Avesta and Parseeism, 
Brahmanism and Buddhism; Israel the Biblical People; Philosophy, 
Qabbala and Vedanta; etc; works published. 



Copyright secured by the Author, Maurice Fluegel, 1910. 

Publishers : M. Fluegel Co., Baltimore, Md., U. S. A. 



B5 1245" 

-F4 



©GI.A256422 



a' 




The Author's Works to be Published: 



The Biblical Holidays and their import for civilization ; 

The Mosaic Genesis, paralleled with other cosmogonies; 

The Biblical Patriarchs, as a historical aera; 

The Mosaic State and Church, Leviticus; 

Religious Rites and Aspects; Credo, Principles, Sanitary Laws. 

II. Edition, largely increased. 

The IV. Book of Mo sis. 

The V. Book of Mosis. 

These seven Manuscript-Volumes and the three already pub- 
lished, exhaustively treat of the Pentateuch, Bible, Talmud, 
and Religion generally, in their world-historic bearings. 

Philosophy Vol. II; Zohar, Thora and Science ; 

The Second Judaean Commonwealth and Maccabean War. 

Each of these volumes of about 300 octavo pages. 

"Essays and Lectures/' historical, political, theological and liter- 
ary ; as also : 

Israel's Battles for Freedom and Renaissance, ''Milhamoth-Ihvh," 
are unfinished. 



Table of Contents 



The leading themes of the volume are : 
I. Moses, the Liberator from Egyptian bondage ; 

II. The Ten Commandments, in their all-sided bearings, com- 
pared with other codes ; 
III. The Mosaic Sanctuary and worship. 

Study I. Page 

Moses the Liberator — Moses and Pharoah 5 

Prophecy and Revelation 7 

Advent of the Liberator 9 

Mosis' Environments and Education 12 

Mosis' Flight, the crisis 16 

Horeb, Sinai, Arabian Desert 18 

The Burning Bush 21 

Israel's Labors — Great Thoughts Never Die 22 

Medrashim on Moses 25-30 

Study II. 

Moses, the Prophets and their mission — Israel's career 31 

Reply and Refutation — Religious, Social and Political outlook 35 

Is Israel true to his task? 41 

Mission of Christianity 43 

Mission of Mohammedanism 47 

The Biblical Teachings 49 

The Hague Peace Arbitration and the Prophets 51 

Charles Voysey on the Mission of the Jews 56 

Practical Results of the Exodus, Survey of Egypt 59 

History Corroborating 67 

Moses faithful to the living and the dead 69 

Moses and the Two Arks — American Israel — Bright Sides 71 

"Woman to assist 82 

Study III. 

The Ten Commandments — Introduction — Kingdom of priests 86 

Sinai's Civilization — Wherefore Israel? Pre- and Post-Sinai 89 

The Coronation formula 94 

Recapitulation and summary 96 

Genesis of the Decalogue 100 

Arabia and Sinai 101 

Decalogue Text and Sense. I — V Commandments 104 

Commandments VI — X. Manifold Stealings — Agadas on that 107 

Considerations, Once and Now 118 

Study IV. 

The One God of the Decalogue 12i 

Divine Existence — Common-Sense Proof — Design in Nature 123 

Science and the God-conception. Biblical divine names 126 

God and Creation 129 

Cause of Evil. R. Aqiba and Vedanta 130 

Nebular Theory and Napoleon Bonaparte 132 

Psalmist, Job, Kant, Herbert Spencer on that 134 



TABLE OF CONTENTS— Continued. 

Page 

Summing up 135 

Mosaic God-idea contrasted with other systems 136 

Dualism — Unity and Trinity — Pantheism — Spinoza 137 

Moses, Fichte, Spinoza, Hegel, Skepticism — God and Nature 144 

Polytheism and its polity contrasted with Pentateuch 147 

The Law of hereidity and entail 153 

Biblical optimism — the Rabbis on that 156 

History shows free-will 160 

III. Commandment — The Oath 162 

Study V. 

The Sabbath of the Decalogue 165 

Sabbath and its humanitarian influences 168 

Thoughts on the Sabbath 171 

Sabbath in America 174 

Sabbath or any other day? Sunday and practical men 177 

Sunday the Symbol of Trinity — Sabbath and Sunday contrasted. .. .182 

American Jews consider! The practical side 185 

Theoretical men and Sunday. Talmudical aspects 188 

Reverse sides of the problem 194 

Appeal for the Sabbath 196 

Study VI. 

Filial Piety and Reverence 20U 

The Jewish Family — Jules Simon on Americanism 202 

Reverence for Country — Reverence for Judaism 206 

Reverence for Synagogue — Reverence for Education 210 

Reverence for God and Virtue. The several Reverences 213 

Study VII. 

Decalogue, Judaism and Christianity 21V 

Harmony and Universality of the Decalogue 218 

The Banner-Bearer and Oriflamme — Israel's future 22i5 

Judaism and Christianity, their differences 227 

The Vatican Syllabus of 1870 228 

Study VIII. 

Israel, Champion of the Decalogue 231 

Battles of Ihvh — Jerusalem and Rome — Tacitus on it 234 

Decalogue and Polytheism 239 

Islam and the Jews — The Crusades, Spain 242 

West Europe — Poland — Marranos — The Ghetto 246 

Nineteenth and Twentieth Century 251 

America and New Judaea — Closing Remarks 254 

United States and the Decalogue 261 

Study IX. 

The Mosaic Sanctuary or Tabernacle 264 

Need of such 266 

Import of Tabernacle and Temple 271 

Once and Now. Temple and Synagogue 276 

The holy vessels of the Tabernacle 278 

Worship and Sacrifical Cult 283 

Table of Shrewbread. The Candelabrum. The Altars 284 

The Holy Ark — Kapporeth, Cherubim form — Outfit 291 

Exodus Trilogy. Survey of the volume. The Code 296 

Personal freedom. Free soil. Equality. Fraternity. End 300-308 

Errata 309 



Exodus, Moses and the Decalogue 



Study /.—MOSES THE LIBERATOR. 

Generally this second Book of Moses is termed: Ve-ala- 
Shemothy the Hebrew opening words of the Book. In the vul- 
gate it is termed: Exodus, the going forth, the issue of the 
Israelites from Egypt. ^ 

Into that land they had immigrated under Jacob and Joseph 
and remained, according to the Bible, 430 years; but according 
to the rabbinical computation, those 430 years of migrations 
began with Abraham, whilst the sojourn proper in Egypt, was 
only of 215 years, encompassing four generations.^ The book 
is devoted to the narrative of the Benai-Israel, their issue from 
the Egyptian country and bondage, their start as a nation, the 
reception of the Law, their sojourn in the wilderness and erection 
of a portative Temple, the Tabernacle, a unique sanctuary, repre- 
senting their oneness in nationality, cult and monotheism. 

The first chapters of Exodus narrate the history of the 
redemption of Israel and the mission of Moses. As Abraham 
began a new aera of civilization, establishing his own family as 
its nucleus and basis, as with Jacob this family grew into a 
tribe propagating that civilization, even so with Moses, the 
dribe expanded into a nation, with the task of developing that 
civilization of monotheism, freedom and labor to its full growth. 

PHARAOH AND MOSES, CONSERVATISM AND PROGRESS. 

The first chapters of this book produce before our eyes two 
leading characters, Moses and Pharaoh. They represent the two 
great forces of human society, the two phases of our human 
nature. Two powers are ever in contention in our social world, 
in eternal antagonism, yet ever working in harmony for the 
preservation of the race and for its unfolding, its stability on one 
hand, and its gradual, cautious advance, on the other hand. 
These two forces are the principles of Conservatism and of Pro- 
gress. They are the two pillars, the ''Joachim and Boas," the 
anchor and the sails of the social ship ; the two faces of the 

2 IV M., xvi., 1. Four generations, Qorah, son Izhar, son Keliath, 
son Levi. 



6 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

Janus-statue, one turned backward, one forwards, one pointing to 
the past and the other to the future; the two poles of time, the 
present and stability, the future and advance. Both are urgently 
and indispensably necessary; they are each other's complement; 
without either, human society would soon collapse; they are the 
centripetal and centrifugal forces of the social body. The one 
insures stability, safety, solidity; the other secures life, move- 
ment, advance, improvement. Without Conservatism the state is 
ever threatened with unrest, precipitate change, revolution, 
shattering and sudden destruction ; without Progress, the State is 
menaced with stagnation, rottenness and collapse. Every age 
has its representation of these two supreme social forces, this 
alluded-to double-faced Janus-statue looking forwards and back- 
wards. They are incarnated in two such leading personal expo- 
nents. No doubt, they are social forces, but personified and 
concrete in these leaders. Four centuries before the Exodus, 
they were by Nimrod and Abraham, later by Esau and Israel. 
They are now in Exodus, by Pharaoh and Moses. Moses is the 
model of those grand men of advance, of movement, of the future ; 
of those extraordinary men whom history produces but at great 
intervals, as marking stones and mile-posts of new aeras, of 
great political and ethical evolutions. Pharaoh is the pattern of 
the opposite principle, stability. He represents the old and 
trite, the vulgar and past, the safe side. Moses appears to be 
the weaker party, but his is, surely, the future. To Pharaoh the 
world seems to belong; he is legitimate, apparently, his is the 
present and the past, but his is not the future. Moses is moved 
by the diviner spirit, by man's nobler nature, by the eternal 
instinct of amelioration, the inherent right of the masses against 
the classes, their betterment against the historical right or privi- 
lege, by universal improvement against the aristocratic minority, 
by the genius of revolution against class pretensions ; he is the 
aggrandized Mirabeau, the Lasker, the Virchow of his time, if 
comparison limps not. Pharaoh, on the contrary, is the Metternich, 
Bourbon or Ignatieff of his. He represents the guild, the philis- 
tinism, the legitimacy, the cast-iron class-legality of his epoch. 
He knows no inherent justice, no inborn equity, no common sense 
fairness; he knows the reigning statute. He represents Law, 
not right, reason — prophecy. 



PHARAOH AND MOSES. 7 

A recent thinker states (Nietzsche, in "Menschliches") : There 
is no right in nature, nothing but force. The forces clash and 
contend for mastery, so war is the necessary result. Then the 
belligerents compromise and stipulate terms of peace. These are 
the elements of right. Without war and treaty there exists no 
right. In the abstract it is a mere conventional notion, coined by 
the hungry masses. This sad view underlies all ancient polythe- 
ism. Prophetism, the Bible is its very opposite pole, and modern 
civilization is deeply moored in that principle : Right and reason, 
not force and selfishness. Ancient Babylon, Athens, Rome stood 
on force and egoism. Jerusalem, Prophetism, Bible with Chris- 
tianity and Mohammedanism are based on God, Right and Rea- 
son. Israel's heroic battles for this higher platform saved it for 
mankind. And this is his great merit for civilization. 

PROPHECY AND REVELATION. 

The leading sentence of our Book is again and again^ : "God 
spake to Moses." This is the motto. God spake to Moses, 
in deed and in fact. Such a grand, holy Moses-nature is ever 
the resounding oracle of the Deity. The noble, ethical, social, 
spiritual truths are revealed to him face to face^, as naturally 
and plainly as are to us, usual people, the bright sky and its 
constellations. 

Is this a miraculous power, lost to us moderns? Was there 
prophecy? Was there genius? Or patriotism? Was there a 
vision, or ecstacy, or a symbol? Who can determine, assert? 
May they not be all identified in one? Who has measured the 
relation, the heights and depths of human mind and of divine 
mind? Surely God has no tongue and no lips, He inspires man 
intellectually — how He inspires? is diversely answered by re- 
ligious philosophy. Who can tell where is the focus, their point 
of contact ? The divine rays ever fill the universe, but how shall 
man make ready to receive them ? Maimonides says : "The 
human species has some extraordinary exemplars best fitted for 
the rational soul, and such an extraordinary human intellect, ad- 
hering fixedly to the divine Intellectus Activus, obtains an addi- 
tional large emanation which constitutes prophecy."^ In such a 



II Moses Etc.nti'lO bi^ n'** "lON''^ n^^T) 1 

3 This is approximately his modest opinion, frequently uttered as 
teacher and thinker, in Yad and Guide. 



8 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

Moses-mind the divine word is ever audible, vehemently sound- 
ing forth its behests and admonitions. To such a nature it 
ordains, in a whisper or a shout: Arise,i early in the morning, 
Moses, rise from the soft pillow of the past and the vulgar, 
rise and go to meet Pharaoh, (the old time genius and repre- 
sentative), and tell him: 'Thus speaketh Ihvh: Send 
forth My people that they may worship Me." — God, the Allgood, 
the active, driving Mind behind nature, the life principle, the 
propelling Power of history, calls : Let My people go 
free that they may serve Me, for they are My servants, not 
the servants of servants.^ — "God spake to Moses." In such noble 
natures the divine voice is ever resounding. They are the 
live-temple of the Divine, its living oracle. They are so sympa- 
thetic, so public spirited, their soul is so clear, mirroring so 
accurately the events of history, their ear is so delicately catching 
up the sounds of suffering humanity that they necessarily be- 
come their interpreters, in them Deity continually speaks. They 
are an eternal vehicle of revelation, so sensitive that every world- 
event strikes them and produces its powerful echo. Mosis' 
sympathetic nature was a sort of aeols' harp. Every historical 
air-current passed through its delicate strings, moved and 
thrilled them and produced harmonious tones, jubilant or mourn- 
ful, corresponding to the surrounding events. Such was that 
Moses-nature, ever alert to the woe and weal of his brethren. 
Hence the refrain: ''God spake to Moses." 

1 II M., viii. Rise early in the morning. 
2 They are my servants, not serfs to serfs. Rashi and Rabbis, ad 
locum. 

Maimonides' Yad and Guide, commenting to Mishnayoth, Sanhedrin, 
on the dogmas, says, page 127 b: 

t^sti^n n-i^v ni^sprD j.-ik^ ny ...nin^^t^n m^iiyD nn^D D^ynto ••^yn 

n^^^i:!:^ km in .na^j niTV« 

Literally and fully translated: The sixth principle is: Prophecy, viz.: 
We must know that the human species contains a few individuals 
naturally endowed with great virtues and perfections, and their minds 
are so well constituted that they do the more perfectly obtain the 
intellectual impress and influence. When, thereupon, this human in- 
telligence fixes itself adheringly to the (divine) Intellectus Activus 
it obtains a most important emanation (of inspiration).. .These are 
the prophets and this is prophecy and its substance. To enlarge upon 
this principle and prove it is not our intention here, and would lead 
us away from our theme... The Torah testifies to it clearly." 



PROPHECY AND REVELATION. 9 

The opposite pole is Pharaoh. He too remained true to his 
nature, the eternal type of vulgarity, of historical views and 
habits, blind prejudice for the old, ever against the new. To 
him the divine behest goes forth : 'Xet My people go that they 
may serve Me." But he is slow to realize the new time. Hence : 
''His heart holds on," he refuses to Hsten; *'he did not let the 
people go," we read again and again. See the stupid tough- 
ness, the holding on to the past, the blind adherence, obstinately 
clinging to the old w^ays. That is political conservatism. It is 
called legitimacy, love of order. One rules by divine grace — 
not in the interest of the people. There is an aristocracy — his- 
torical, not natural, not of the really best. There reigns the 
Law — not identical with real justice. There is an accumulation 
of customs and privileges piled up, high and huge as the tower of 
Babel — "but there is never the question of the rights born with 
us." There is a love of order — without love and without order, 
yea, upholding disorder; Laws accumulating as the cancer, from 
generation to generation; in the interests of the dynasts and the 
classes, against the masses of the people. Pharaoh is its represen- 
tative. 

Such a stupid conservatism we meet in all the social phases 
and strata, in private and in public, at home, church and State ; in 
eating and drinking, in wakefulness or asleep ; in the market and 
the caucus. People do what they have been doing, not because 
it is good and wnse, but because it is a habit. An old proverb says : 
"Having acted wrongly and repeated the wrong, it appears an 
established right. "^ All that is personified in Pharaoh, the em- 
bodiment of blind conservatism and stability. Moses calls : Thus 
speaks Ihvh, "Let My people go, that they may serve Me !" In 
vain, Pharaoh insists and refuses : "I know not that hypothesis !" 

ADVENT OF THE LIBERATOR. 

Wonderful and inspiring, tragic and yet cheering, is the his- 
tory of the birth and the rise of providential men. It is sublime 
and extraordinary, but it is in every way natural. Surprising 
and edifying are the methods of Supreme Intelligence about the 
destiny of mankind, in mysterious meanderings, winding and 
tortuous. As an impetuous mountain torrent rushes its stormy 
waves, through deep ravines, rocks and clefts, straits and sub- 
terraneous beds until at last it reappears a grand, majestic, vast 



10 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

stream, sudden as by enchantment, nevertheless, natural, going 
from cause to effect, every water-drop it carries is well accounted 
for, the outcome of the manifold sources; even so are the ways 
and means of Providence in the mysterious concatenations and 
meanderings of world history. They are wonderful and myste- 
rious, but ever rigidly natural, never infringing upon the im- 
mutable, eternal, divine laws, primordially laid down by the Great 
Architect of the universe. Even so is the history of the birth, 
the rise, the life and the mission of Moses to Israel. Read the 
sagas about the founders, not only of antique India, Assyria, 
Akkad or Babylon, but even of later Rome, Athens or Carthage, 
and see what crude and rude myths and marvels are there 
brought forward to illustrate their heroes ! The more miracle, 
the greater the hero ! the more the natural laws are set aside, the 
greater appeared the leader. Nothing of the kind you find 
around the birth, rise and mission of Moses. They are extra- 
ordinary, but not encroaching upon the eternal laws of God, 
deeply laid down in the workings of the universe. This is one 
of the salient points of the Hebraic sacred Scriptures. Their 
heroes are men, historic beings, acting within the bounds of our 
known natural laws. They are extraordinary, fit causes of 
extraordinary effects. 

Now let us consider : What is the background to the Book of 
Exodus and the Mosaic mission? Long before the advent of 
Moses and the Benai-Israel in Mizraim, that country had been 
invaded and gradually conquered by the Semitic Hyksos,^ 
shepherd tribes from neighboring Arabia and Khanaan. Lower 
Egypt, around the several branches of the Nile, was occupied and 
personally ruled by their kings, whilst upper-Egypt, was left 
as yet to the native lords, recognizing the suzerainty of the 
foreign-born Hyksos princes. Most naturally these were ever 
apprehensive of the native populations and their yet reigning 
sub-kings ; cunningly divided and abetted against each other by 
the crafty polity of the Hyksos sovereign, they were, neverthe- 
less, ever ready to unite against the foreign invaders. It was 
ever the Hyksos' policy to call from Arabia and Khanaan as 
many countrymen as possible, in order to strengthen their own 
ranks against any possible rising of the natives. Under such a 



iSee Messiah Ideal, Vol. I, page 124. Hyksos. 



ADVENT OF THE LIBERATOR. ii 

Hyksos-Pharaoh, Joseph had arrived in Egypt, as a slave, and 
sold to Potiphar, the head of the shepherd king's bodyguard. 
Under such circumstances Joseph had, most naturally, suc- 
ceeded in gaining the favor of the courtiers, Hyksos, too, as v^^ell 
as of the king himself. Under such, he had become one of the 
provincial governors, had occasion to provide for the country 
during a famine, and thus succeeded to serve well his foreign 
Hyksos master, and at the same time the native people. During 
that famine he continued to acquire the entire territory for the 
Pharaoh, while he saved the population from starvation. He 
then acquired the consent of the king to settle his own tribe, 
the Benai-Israel, on the confines of Egypt and Arabia, in 
"Goshen," the king finding in him a useful and politic minister, 
and in his tribe faithful allies, countrymen and fellow-shepherds, 
holding the same position and interests as himself, towards the 
aboriginal population. But a new situation arrived; the native 
princes and the native people gradually made common cause and 
the Hyksos conquerers were driven out of the country. This 
was a long and wearisome undertaking. Now as the Benai- 
Israel were not really identical with the Hyksos, as they had 
not come as conqurers into the land, as their chieftain, Joseph, 
had saved the land during a famine, and generally had left a 
patriotic and good record of his government, so his tribe was 
allowed to stay in the country, after the Hyksos had been ex- 
pelled. But some time after this expulsion, a change of feeling 
came on. We read (Exodus i : 8) : And there arose a new King 
(viz. : a new, native dynasty) who did not know Joseph, and he 
addressed his fellow-native counsellors : "Behold the foreign Benai- 
Israel are becoming more numerous and powerful than we. Take 
care, we must be politic, for they will go on ever increasing, and 
should war (with the close-by hovering Hyksos) break out, then 
they may side with our enemies, join in the war against us and 
leave the land." (II M. I. 10). So a policy of repression, op- 
pression and systematic destruction was inaugurated, culminat- 
ing in conspiring against the unborn generations, and drowning 
every male-child of the doomed foreign race — the policy of the 
Anti-Semites of today, as of the Pharaohs of the 3,500 years ago. 
Under such pressing, ominous circumstances, the advent 
of Moses took place: Two peoples, close-by, are here in array 
against each other: The one is a formidable majority, under its 



12 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

own leaders, with all the resources of centralized power, au- 
thority, government, armies, statescraft, proud of its indigenous 
nationality and its recent victory over the Shepherd invaders. 
It conspires against the other alien clan, apprehensive of 
the growing remnant of these ''foreigners." Eager to keep 
them as bondsmen and exploit them, yet afraid of their growing 
numbers, it determined to check that strength, even by secret 
or open murder, by destroying the births and growths of the 
males and retaining but the female half of the dreaded race. The 
Jew-baiting methods of today, 3,500 years after the Pharaohs, 
in Russia, Roumania, elsewhere, in our boastful civiHzation, in 
Christendom, etc., proves that the Pharaonic policy of drown- 
ing is history, and not myth. 

Under such circumstances, Moses made his appearance, in this 
dismal, sublunar world, as the bridge between the contending 
parties, a child of the enslaved race, brought up at the court of 
the dominant one. The Pharaoh, thus, unconsciously, educating 
and equipping a leader of the oppressed against the oppressors. 

MOSIS' ENVIRONMENTS AND EDUCATION. 

I said, extraordinary men are the result of extraordinary 
epochs and new, surprising constellations and environments. 
Great men are not great by mere chance, not by blind acci- 
dent or the caprice of fate, or by miraculous grace. History 
is grounded in law. This is a rabinnical view, too. Abraham 
became great by efforts and trials, by education and gradual 
developing. "With Ten Trials he was tried and these made him 
great," say our sages. ^ Such is also the sense of the Greek 
myths of Heracles, Theseus, Perseus. Circumstances, efforts, 
developments create epoch-making men. Hence it is of great 
interest to know the beginnings, the genesis of great men. The 
people often surround them with posthumous miracles and prod- 
igies, thinking that only marvels create marvels. The wise 
know that only great causes bring forth great effects. Marvels 
do not explain; while reasonable, though extraordinary causes 
do. Hence it is not true what some advance, that such causes are 
later invented, myths explaining myths. No, the birth, rearing 



I M., 12. Agada DmnNS r\)^v^ nnx ^iD^ ...Dn-i3K no: niJVDJ mc^yn i 



MOSIS' ENVIRONMENTS AND EDUCATION. 13 

and rise of great men are remarkable, and hence they produce 
remarkable results. There are certain historical critics that aim 
at flattening all great men and all great events, declaring that 
everything great is a myth, an exaggeration, that Abraham, 
Moses, Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, etc., are but myths, they 
and their deeds, that they either never existed, or never such as 
depicted in history. This view of vulgarizing great epochs, 
lowering them to mere commonplace, and their human agents 
also to commonplace, this view, too, is vulgar. It is not at all 
criticism, not solving the riddles of history. No, great events 
and aeras are, no doubt, the result of the surrounding great cir- 
cumstances, first, and next of great human agents, their repre- 
sentatives, and both are great and extraordinary, the natural and 
logical outcome of a vast and incalculable concatenation of things, 
of which the last ring is an all-wise Providence, governing 
all by eternal laws. Pseudo-critics tell us that Abraham, Moses, 
Jesus, etc., are but fictions. Whence come then the deeds, yea, 
the aeras attributed to them, since every effect must have its 
adequate cause? If monotheism, with its correlative ideas of 
right, pan-humanity, sympathy, solidarity, has not been advanced 
by them, somebody else must have done it, and if somebody has, 
why not those testified to by history ? It is but envy that belittles 
mankind and its heroes. Smallness begets smallness. 

Moses is thus a fact, a historical, real person ; Israel's leader in 
his Exodus from Egypt, his liberator, the starter of his legisla- 
tion, the founder of the nation. And these extraordinary facts 
must have an extraordinary cause; Moses must have been a 
creative genius, acting in favorable extraordinary environments. 
What were these ? Our chapters tell us this : From the very 
start his circumstances were strange and peculiar, calling for a 
great genius. His people oppressed, full of energy, yet held 
under the iron thumbscrew of the new Pharaohs and the native 
Egyptians, suspicious of the foreign race. Its growth was 
impeded, its members doomed, its births curtailed. He, Moses, 
himself, is exposed to the mercy of the Nile waves. His mother 
and sister contrive — what does not love and iron necessity con- 
trive? — to place him in a casket into the Nile where a court lady 
frequently takes her baths. She passes by and hears the cries 
of the baby from the casket in the waves. She guesses that it is 
a Hebrew one, doomed to perish, and she feels sympathetically, 



14 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

more as a woman than as an Egyptian. She saves the child, and 
calHng for a nurse, the sister, and soon the mother, close by, wait- 
ing for the opportunity, most naturally offer their services. So, 
most naturally and without any miracles, the baby, doomed to 
destruction, is saved by the very tyrants, by a Pharaonic 
princess, in a simple, still extraordinary way. She, a daughter of 
tyranny, takes it upon herself to rear a liberator to, and an 
avenger of, the oppressed people. And mark, this is not a myth, 
no ! it is history, you see, it is perfectly logical, it is necessarily 
true, for how else would the enslaved race find a leader, stored 
with the faculties, the knowledge, the learning, the experience, the 
energy, the statesmanship, all the resources and equipments re- 
quired for such a gigantic undertaking — if the Court itself had 
not undertaken to furnish the first, great requisite, a pariah edu- 
cated as a leader? Here is one of those extraordinary strokes 
of divine policy which decide of great events. Here was the 
occasion, the need for a great liberator, and the Court furnished 
the liberator! And not only is this a fact, not a myth, but the 
fact is cogent, indispensably necessary, the pivot, the turn-point 
of the catastrophe. It is the cue to and the beginning of the 
entire world-drama. Moses was born a Hebrew slave and edu- 
cated as a commander, the Numa and the Servius Tullius of the 
Jewish people, enabled to conceive the plan, lead, prepare and 
liberate his own pariah-race and make it a historic nation. 

As Sacred Scripture shows us Egypt, and as we know it by 
history now extant, it was then at the height of power and civili- 
zation. At that court was gathered the flower of oriental wisdom, 
the sciences, arts and crafts of peace and war, of government 
and statesmanship. There Moses learned all the ancient world 
knew, so indispensable for his providential undertaking, to rescue 
and liberate, create and rule a nation.^ 

There are plenty of legends about his early ambitions and 
activities, his successes and achievements. We are told that 
he had been a soldier, a general, a conqueror of provinces, of 
Ethiopia, that he even had married there a royal princess. No 
doubt, a gifted young man, patronized by the court, the most 
brilliant future was open to his genius. Scripture passes all that 
in silence. Our chapter introduces him modestly and simply: 
"Moses was tending to the flocks of Jethro, his father-in-law.'' 

1 So Maimonides contends, after the Rabbis, that only such extraor- 
dinary men can perform such deeds; that a prophet must be strong, 
rich and energetic. 



MOSIS' ENVIRONMENTS AND EDUCATION. 15 

Another proof of its veracity and historical calibre ; it keeps 
strictly to facts, when depicting the characters of its hero. Now 
consider : Any other, usual man would have prudently forgotten 
his affiliation with the enslaved race, would have denied it and 
rather vaunted and bragged of his princely standing, of his Egyp- 
tian education, of office, state-sword and preferments. We well 
know this petty vanity and this prudent meanness, which repu- 
diate and deny the minority, the losing party and ever hasten into 
the ranks of the majority, of the winning, reigning class or 
party. We know of those turn-coats who feel flattered when mis- 
taken for one of the dominant race. Many a fool says : "I am na 
Irishman, no Dutchman, no Jew : I am a man ! I am not clannish, 
I am a citizen of the vast world !" That is mere cant and sub- 
terfuge. That is the mask of cold selfishness. Such people are 
no good religionists, no good men, no true patriots and no real 
humanists. They are cunning, petty egoists. To be a good man, 
begin to be a good Teuton, Jew or Irishman. To be a citizen of the 
world you must start as a good patriot of your country. Begia 
within that small sphere Providence has indicated by your station,, 
your birth. Doing there your duty you will benefit all humanity 
and the entire world. ''Whosoever desires to perform something 
great, must concentrate his greatest energy upon the smallest 
point."^ So acted Moses, the Hebraic pariah, the world- 
leader. He who bore an Egyptian pallium, a grandee's sword 
and uniform, who had enjoyed an Egyptian education and was 
permeated with cosmopolitan ways of thinking, he had not lost 
his Hebraic consciousness. He remembered his birth, his parents,, 
and kindred, his pariah-home and his race, their sad history, 
and their wrongs. He forgot not his duty towards them and 
was not dazzled by the lustre of his adoption. Here is the sign 
of true greatness, of moral worth, yea, of genius, of a great 
destiny. Let us illustrate this by a quotation from Roman litera- 
ture: Cicero, speaking of such a man (De Amicitia dialogus) 
says : "This is an example to be imitated : Has one acquired any 
kind of superiority, virtue, spirit, fortune, let him divide it with 

his friends and his kindred. Is one born in an obscure family, of 
poor parents, modestly endowed, he must be their fortune, honor, 

iGoethe. Willst Du was Grosses leisten, so richte die grosste Kraft 
auf den kleinsten Punkt. 



i6 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

glory."i Here are combined a solid head, a feeling- heart, and an 
energetic hand; here are vast thoughts and deep sympathies. 
Where head, heart and hand work in harmony, there is a great 
man born into the world. A good heart without the solid head, 
is of little avail. A solid head without a sympathetic heart, often 
turns dangerous to the world. Such were Sulla, Caesar, Napoleon. 
Head and heart in harmony, what sympathy erst craves and 
muses, then plans and contrives with a firm head, and executes 
with an energetic hand, that makes a leader, a genuine humanist, 
a historical epoch, a providential instrument of liberation and 
initiative, an aera in man's annals. Such were Moses and his 
achievements. 

THE CRISIS, MOSIS' FLIGHT 

What is the crisis? When does Moses, the born Hebrew 
slave, the adopted Egyptian prince, take sides and declare him- 
self a Hebrew patriot? Bloomed up into manhood, adorned with 
youth, health, spirit and knowledge, an Egyptian purple-cloak 
hanging from his shoulders, and an Egyptian sword dangling at 
his firm side, imbibed with the fumes of court favor and prefer- 
ment, he nevertheless remembers the wrinkles of his mother, the 
woes of his kindred and brethren ! His heart prompts him to see 
them in their villanage. He repairs for the first time to the 
Hebrew camp. What a sight of woe and brutality, of tears, pros- 
tration, hard labor! What a sight of human wretchedness and 
remorseless cruelty ! He feels revolted, horrified ! His blood 
boils and rises ! What a sight of tyranny, cruelty, and over- 
bearing on one side, of submission and long suffering, of meek 
resignation and abject misery on the other! This is Mosis' 
crisis. His feelings get the mastery over his worldly prudence. 
The Egyptian grandee yields and recedes in his bosom, and the 
Israelite predominates. — When he beheld a poor Hebraic laborer 
writhing under an Egyptian lash, sick with age and ill treatment, 
the laborer is succumbing under his exhausting work and the 
blows of his cruel Egyptian task-master, shouting: Work or die, 
slave ! And Moses hesitates no longer, he draws his good sword, 
a stroke — and the cruel task-master lies dead at his feet. 



iCicero. Si propinquis habeant imbeciliores vel animo vel fortuna, 
corum augeant opes, eisque honori sint et dignitati. 



THE CRISIS, MOSIS' FLIGHT. j; 

Quickly a fellow-Hebrew denounces the patriot: "Wilt thou 
kill me as thou recently didst the Egyptian?" Slavery brutalizes 
even to ingratitude. The deed is soon reported to the authori- 
ties and IMoses must flee for his life. He goes into exile. He fore- 
goes his proud hopes and expectations at the court of the king. 
He counts himself out from the ranks of the oppressors, and nobly 
enters those of the oppressed. Clearly he sees and recognizes in 
his conscience, his task, his providential mission : The liberation 
of his oppressed race ! He goes into exile, into the Arabian 
desert, settles in one of its rare oasis, for shelter and meditation, 
abiding his time, meditating upon his work of enfranchisement, 
his mission to the Israelitish pariahs. 

]\Iany are the legendary reminiscences of his forty years' sojourn 
in Arabia, as reported in Medrashim, Josephus and rare Gentile 
sources. Here I shall adduce but one, it is characteristic: The 
Egyptian courtier-exile, the future liberator earns his daily bread 
as the shepherd of the flocks of a tent-dwelling Sheikh, a Be- 
douin, Jethro the Lord of Midyan, an Oasis, there. Once upon 
a time he misses a young lamb from his numerous flock. The 
sun glows high on the horizon, with its burning rays perpendicu- 
larly darting upon the earth ; the shading shrubs, the cooling 
rocks are rare. The heated desert-sands inflame the air, all is a 
glowing furnace. But the little lamb is missing. Its anxious 
mother is distressfully bleating. So Moses goes on its search, 
for hours ; at last he discovers it. It is lame, fainting and starved ; 
it cannot move on and utters its last laments, in the deadly sun- 
rays. Moses raises it in his arms, up to his bosom, pats and con- 
soles it ; himself exhausted with heat and thirst, he carries it to the 
mother. And Almighty looking down from His heavenly window, 
wiped off a pearly tear from his big Providential eye, saying : Mos- 
es, thou art so sympathetic with a poor, dumb, lame lamb ; Moses, 
thou wilt sympathize with My poor sheep, the flock of Israel, and, 
in that instant He intrusts him with the mission to the Hebrew 
enslaved ones. People looking for and choosing their leaders, 
should take this legend to heart and see whether such leaders 
rescue the poor lambs, or rather devour them. 



i8 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

HOREB, SINAI, THE ARABIAN DESERT. 

During his forty years' sojourn in the desert, he was continu- 
ally meditating and brooding over the possibilities of redeeming 
his enslaved brethren. The lofty, inspiring vista of that sunny, 
boundless Arabian peninsula, a continent, a world for itself, set 
apart by nature, a grandiose empire of freedom, where man 
ever lives in his pristine conditions, in unlimited independence, 
original force and stern simplicity, so strikingly contrasting with 
the dazzling, boastful, artificial, over-refined, rotten Pharaonic 
civilization of ancient Egypt, that matured in his mind the feasi- 
bility of his hazardous undertaking of liberation. Often he 
pastured his flocks there in the neighborhood of Horeb, a bar- 
ren promontory, a high plateau stretching above Sinai, a hoary 
ridge of mountains, revered and deemed holy already in those 
antique times. It is a region of mountains, mount on top of 
other mounts, "Ossa piled on Pelion."^ From its highest peak 
you see the three continents of the ancient world spreading 
out at your feet. The great seas of the ancient map, the Indian 
Ocean, the Persian Gulf, the Arabian or Red Sea, and the Medi- 
terranean roll their waves around that mountain-ridge. It is the 
proud, connecting link between Arabia, Asia, Africa and Europe. 
The Horeb region appears as the root, the base, the nucleus of 
the ancient world; from its top there spreads a marvelous 
illimitable vista of beauty and boundless grandeur, awe-inspiring 
and delighting, expanding the mind of the beholder, lifting up 
his soul, scattering despondency, creating cheer, energy and 
hope, displaying the boundless magnitude of the universe and of 
its Creator, laughing at and frowning upon the pettiness of 
human lordship, tyranny and overbearing. From the height of 
Sinai, as his pedestal, dawned and flashed upon Moses, the 
divine impulse of redemption. There was revealed to him the 
God of right, of liberty, of justice to the oppressed. There he 
was inspired with his mission to Israel. 

Many positivists, now, disclaim all that and say : There was no 
Horeb and no Sinai, no Moses and no revelation. "All these 
chapters are but a popular construction, post factum, an intro- 
duction after the work was completed." But we appeal to the 

1 Now termed Gebel Musa, in Arabia Petraea, 8,000 feet high, with a 
promontory, a 1,000 feet higher still, now assumed as the Scriptural 
Horeb, both piously ascertained by old, uninterrupted traditions and 
the pen of poets, dear to the human heart, but unimportant to criticism. 



HOREB, SINAI, THE ARABIAN DESERT. 19 

experience of men of thought and of deed, to men who are not 
satisfied with traveling on the highways of custom ; to men who 
strike a path for themselves, the rugged path of initiative, genius 
and invention; to men who have left some trace of their earthly 
pilgrimage — where did they take their bold resolve, their peril- 
ous courage, their noble inspirations to leave the broad road of 
habit, comfort and commonplace, and turn to the steep and 
abrupt by-paths of new ideas, bold achievements and long sus- 
tained efforts? Not surely in the narrow shop or busy mart, 
not on the noisy exchange, not even in the elegant chair at 
Church or theater. No, they took it in free nature, in the vast 
wild forest, on some high mountain peak, on the Chimborazo, 
or the burning Mount Pelee,^ or the Mount Blanc, at the Niagara 
Falls, or the ocean shore, on the Kickelhahn of Thuringia, the 
Harz, the Allegheny, or the Rocky Mountains. There, far from 
the deafening noise and turmoil of petty interests, far from small 
ambitions and strife, there the human mind grows, recovers its 
dignity and rises to the height of its own grand possibilities; 
and there it finds inspiration, elasticity, energy, enthusiasm ; there 
it finds revelation, there it conceives the divine behest, to under- 
take and execute great things, advancing the human race. There 
is the pristine holy of holies, where the human mind comes in 
close touch with the Divine Mind and hears the call : Go, Moses, 
and redeem the oppressed ! 

And such calls are not few. The Deity ever calls, but rare are 
those intently listening to the call ! Whence hail these grand char- 
acters? Wherever you see noble, chaste enthusiasm, warm sym- 
pathy for the oppressed and lowly, sincere yearning to help, be it 
even at one's own peril, there is the germ of the liberator, the 
savior and prophet. A few of such germs grow, mature and 
realize. Many more decay, wither and die, lured away by petty 
interests, politics and schemers; wrecked by too great difficulties, 
or by too great temptations ; not having enough of the prophetic 
energy. A few great genii remain, the chosen of the chosen 



1 I think of the rugged, laborious, noble career of both the Heil- 
prins, Michael and Angelo, the father and the son, both living and 
dying, for the advance of their fellowmen, of their race and of science, 
both inspired of the holy spirit — a wreath to each of them. 



JM 



20 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

ones, a rare select band of God-kissed souls, mighty, spiritual 
men, with sympathizing hearts and impulsive hands, the flower 
of the race. They insist, in spite of difficulties, poverty, derision, 
abandonment, and misconstruction. These are the mile-posts in 
history, the standard bearers of progress. They hear the divine 
voice calling: ''Go, rescue, liberate My people, to the end that 
they may worship Me, the Divine, not the Pharaohs." 

Now do not quibble about supernaturalism, inspiration, proph- 
ecy and miraculous visions, or about enthusiasm, patriotism, 
genius, generosity, duty, sympathy, conscious initiative, genuine 
yearning to do good. Call it what you please, natural or supernat- 
ural, prophecy or divine genius, or humane holiness. It is the grand- 
est, sublimest, it is mind-power, it is divine. Consider it rationally 
or mystically. It is identical, it is inspiration, it comes from on 
high, from the Source of all Mind and Goodness. In its sublimest 
stages it creates prophets, initiators, liberators, hearing the admo- 
nition : Go and liberate ! I say : It comes from the Sacred self- 
evident though hidden and mysterious Source of Mind and Good- 
ness. Or does it come from elsewhere? from petty ambition, from 
selfishness, from cunning scheming? Not Machiavell would 
soberly affirm that ! Contemplate and consider : Moses, a pariah 
adopted by the court, raised and educated as a lord, surrenders 
the allurements of power, favor and preferment, throws all that to 
the winds, gives up all those advantages, declares himself a fel- 
low-pariah, retires to the wilderness, lives upon roots and water 
and, there, determines upon the even more hazardous and thank- 
less task, of becoming the mouthpiece of a horde of slaves 
against their powerful masters ! Can such a resolve come from 
any other source than that of All-Goodness and All-Power? 

Again let us appeal to history and fact. Inquire and scruti- 
nize every great epoch and its human agents, yea, any superior 
man of your personal acquaintance, and you will find out, he had 
his Horeb, his Sinai, his sacred mount, where was the crisis of 
his life, where his resolve upon this or that generous career was 
determined upon. Even so had Kapila and Buddha, Zoroaster 
and Jesus and Mohammed, each, had his holy mount. Yea, even 
minor minds, as Alexander, Cyrus, Plato, Paul, Huss, Bruno, 
Luther, all, had their sacred mounts, where they had taken 
their inspiration, their resolution for their tasks. Commonplace 
men, take their final stand in common, everyday places. Supe- 



THE BURNING BUSH. 21 

rior men rise to the grand vistas of nature, wherever hovers the 
Shekhina of the God of nature, there their vocation is deter- 
mined upon. 

Even so we read in II M. 3. "And Moses led his flock to the 
Mount of God at Horeb. And he beheld the angel of Ihvh in the 
flame from the thornbush. . .He saw the bush burning but never 
consumed. . .So he stepped nearer. . .when the divine voice called 
out : I am the God of thy fathers ... I have seen the tribulations 
of my people, in Egypt, I have heard their cry and know their 
woes ... I will rescue them from the hand of Egypt and bring 
them unto a land flowing with milk and honey . . . Now, go, I send 
thee to Pharaoh and redeem Israel from Egypt. . .And Moses 
said: "Who am I to call on Pharaoh to free Israel?" What a 
grand tragic! The struggle of genius with human weakness 
and inimical circumstances! He hesitates at the stupendous un- 
dertaking and his slender means. He thinks of his wife, chil- 
dren and sweet home, of parents and kindred in Egypt, of the 
power and tyranny of the Pharaohs. His courage faints, his 
human helplessness overpowers him: "Who am I to undertake 
such a gigantic task?" 

And God said : "I shall be with thee . . .And this be thy test : on 
this very mount you shall worship... I am the God of Eter- 
nity, the Everlasting, I send thee to Israel, go and assemble the 
Elders . . . Call on the king and tell him : Ihvh, bids us to go and 
worship him ... I know he will refuse, but I shall compel him and 
he will let you go.." 

Mosis' great and sympathetic soul felt enkindled ; his powerful 
brain was lit up v^ith the flaming thornbush ; mighty Sinai burnt 
in his mightier heart. The vibrating and flashing thunders voiced 
forth redemption. It burned and singed and flamed in his sympa- 
thetic bosom. The thought of liberation lit up and transfigured 
him ; the immortal thought to free and avenge his brethren, stood 
clear and illumined before him, and that thought never more 
vanished. "Behold, the bush was burning, but was never con- 
sumed." Material fire destroys its own combustible matter ; spirit- 
ual fire ever burns and never consumes. It ever burns, and is 
never quenched. It ever burns, cheers, illumines and fires on, but 
never destroys its bearer. The tenacity, the elasticity of initiators 



22 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

is astonishing, visibly upheld by their inherent divine force : 
"the burning bush, burning, never consumed." Again the burn- 
ing bush "is the grandest symbol of the redemption- thought of 
the great liberator. Feels one his warm heart sincerely inspired 
with, and pulsing for, human weal and improvement ; has one the 
head to conceive and the plan, with the hand to execute it, to help 
and rescue his fellows, then that thought, that holy passion, that 
energy will never die out. His heart will burn and bleed and 
ache as if to burst into a thousand splinters. His brain will teem 
and brood and hammer out the plan, until the work will be 
accomplished. The world is indifferent and coldly looks on the 
dreamer, the enthusiast." But the enthusiast feels inspired. This 
very enthusiasm ever burns and shines and cheers him until the 
work is accomplished. Reader, doubt not ! Great thoughts ever 
are divine inspirations, God's messengers, holy revelations coming 
from the Supreme Source of Goodness and Wisdom, revealed 
from Mind to mind, rays from God to man. They never die. 
Never! Their human vehicle, the mortal agent, may perish, they 
never ! Have such thoughts once invaded a human breast, have 
they once lit up a human brain, then they will ever burn and 
kindle ever more, and never be put down until realized in fact 
and in history. They are the utterance. Verb, of the divine angel^ 
whispering, speaking, roaring, thundering: I have seen the 
afflictions of Aly people... Go, Moses, and rescue them! The 
great Moses-heart was itself that burning bush, in his soul the 
flaming angel called : Moses go and rescue ! Pharaoh shrugged 
his shoulders: That is none of thy business, Moses, thou senti- 
mentalist or demagogue! But Moses was not dismayed, he felt 
the inspiration : "Go, and make free !" 

ISRAEL'S LABORS. 

And to this day the wonderful thornbush is burning. It burnt 
at Horeb; it burnt in Mosis' heart; it burns now in 
Israel's and mankind's history. Israel represents in history that 
ever burning thornbush. Lowly, diminutive, dry, despised — 
yet "the Bush burns and is never consumed." A thousand times 
beaten, broken, scattered; yet he is erect, entire, undismayed, 
hopeful, reckoning upon the future.^ From the center of that 

Agada piin \*2 ni<2n nj^'^,Niny t^nyt^'n -..D^!^t^"n^3 nxsn n^i^h i 



ISRAEL'S LABORS 23 

humble flame the divine angel still and ever calls : I have seen 
the tribulations and have heard the cry of the people. ''Go and 
rescue them !" Moses and Israel have ever represented the 
masses, the laboring people, liberalism, the party of enfranchise- 
ment. Israel, as once Moses, ever kept up the revelation of every 
man's rights. The Hebrew is the historical mouthpiece of the 
divine spirit of advance and of emancipation, ever calling: ''Pha- 
raoh, let My people go, let them serve God : they are God's ser- 
vants, not the slaves of slaves." Israel is the champion and 
emancipator from the social, economical and political yoke, of 
guilds, classes, priests, dynasts. He is also the protest and the shield 
against lurking sensuality and materialism. 'Xet go My people, 
that they may serve God." The divine, the spiritual, the moral, 
the ideal, is the task of Israel, he is calling mankind to the service 
of the Divine. Israel never made war for conquest and spoils. 
His entire history is one great lesson that, not war and conquest, 
not acquisition and money, not the exchange and the market, but 
spirituality, ideality, mentality are man's goal. Not pleasure and 
splendor, but correct thinking, feeling, educating and acting are 
the grand objects of human civilization.^ 

GREAT THOUGHTS NEVER DIE. 

As the Thornbush of Horeb, great thoughts burn and never die 
out. When in the sixteenth century the idea flamed up that con- 
science and religion must be free, that man should think and 
believe according to his own free, honest convictions, then arose 
V/yclif and Huss, Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Knox, etc., and con- 
ceived the scheme of the Reformation. And that new principle 
never more receded. Europe was involved in one common, civil 
and interstate conflagration, countries were devastated and my- 
riads perished in battle, by the hangman, or in the vaults of the 
Inquisition, but free thought and Religious toleration were 
upheld. 

When, in the eighteenth century, the principle of political free- 
dom and equality before the law^, human dignity, no born rulers 
and no born slaves, dawned upon Europe and America, the world 
was lifted out of its hinges. Streams of blood flowed, mountains 
of wrecks were heaped over the old world, the third, yea, the 
fourth Estate, the people, arose on the debris of dynasts and_ 

iNot with armies, not by force, but by my Spirit. (Sashana.) 



24 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

nobles. Right, bread, freedom and pursuit of happiness for all 
triumphed. Coalitions and holy alliances yielded to right and 
common sense. 

When, after Moses Mendelssohn and with the French Revolu- 
tion, the idea dawned, that the Jews are part of humanity, that 
Israel did his share in history, in the labor of civilization, that 
Jews are not Kammerknechte, not the serfs of the Crown, should 
pay no Leibzoll^ not be slandered by the Pfaiferif not maltreated 
by baron and mob, that idea had its struggle, is not yet fully 
admitted by some. But it is ever gaining ground, never receding, 
it is bound to triumph, it has the co-operation of every honest 
and fair-minded man of all races and creeds. 

When the thirteen North American colonies awakened to the 
idea of total independence from England, of self-government by 
the people and for the people, no foreign taxation and no taking 
advantage, no metropolis, no colonies and no exploitation, Ameri- 
ca for the Americans, for the oppressed of all nations and noc for 
the oppressors, no disqualification on account of creed, race and 
class, classes and masses to be merged into the people, rights, 
duties, schools, chances, bread and aspirations alike for all — 
there was an immense conflict, clash of arms, waste of property, 
bloodshed. But the thirteen colonies came out triumphant. They 
form now the United States of America; 85 millions of free 
people, the beaconlight of humanity, the pattern of freedom, 
social equality and peace. ''Behold the thornbush burned, yet 
was never consumed.". . .The Angel of Ihvh called from that 
flame: "I have seen the miseries of the people, I shall redeem 
them. Go, Moses, I send thee to Pharaoh, to rescue My people 
from Egypt." Not king and baron, not force and over-reaching, 
not egoism and sensuality, but God and freedom, right and civi- 
lization shall rule. 

Such is constituted the flame of the Burning Bush, the 
divine voice of sympathy with suffering humanity, and such are 
the providential men, the liberators sent out to rescue man from 
the Pharaohs. Such was Moses: A heart warmly feeling for 
the people, a head conceiving the idea and the means of liberation, 
a hand of energy, unshaken and undismayed, to realize the 
designs of Providence, for the advance of mankind, such are con- 
stituted the liberators, the leaders, the aera-makers, the prophets ; 
their thoughts are revelations, their deeds are providential, they 



MEDRASHIM ON MOSES. 25 

are divine messengers, they receive and carry to mankind the 
mandates of God : Go, help, Hberate, improve ! 

Let us quote here some of the tales and legends, on that 
memorable epoch, found in Talmud, Commentaries and Med- 
rashim, all stories claimed to be hinted at by our Sacred text of 
Exodus, popular tales helping to supplement history: When 
Pharaoh determined upon cruel oppression, he called together 
the doomed race and said to them sweetly^ : I pray you, only 
today help me make some bricks and finish up these necessary 
fortifications. He set personally an example, took up the basket, 
shovel and trowel and began busily toiling. Of course every 
Hebrew laborer zealously followed the royal example, took up 
the work and made as many bricks as he possibly could in the 
shortest time. When the night set in, Pharaoh said : Well done, 
my brave lads : please count accurately how many bricks did you 
make, each ? Informed of the goodly number, he said : Take 
care now you fellows ; As many must you make, day by day, or 
the lash will drop on your lazy shoulders, for every brick you 
miss (Yalkut, 163). Our modern Pharaohs may learn from that 
how to ring out taxes and imposts from simple-minded people. 

(Sota ii b.) R. Aquiba taught: "In reward of the pious 
women of that generation, was Israel redeemed from Egypt : for 
when they went to fetch their water from the Nile, God made 
them fill their pitchers half with water and half with little fishes. 
They went home, made that to soup with fish and quickly brought 
both to their husbands in the field, caressed and encouraged them 
to eat and drink, be of good cheer and have patience in the hard 
times : "Fear not, not forever will this toil last, soon our God will 
redeem you from this bondage," giving them the utmost token of 
their tenderness, hopefulness and love. (Ibid. 163:4.) Once 
upon a time Pharaoh dreamt :2 He was sitting upon his throne 
and lo ! an old man stepped before him with a pair of scales in his 
hand. Then he took all the grandees of the court, tied them up 
as a bundle of hay and placed them upon one scale, and a young 
lamb he put into the other scale, and the tiny lamb outweighed 
all the lords. Awakening and wondering, Pharaoh assembled his 

Sweetly. Yalkut, Exodus, Tanhuma, Abkhir. '^iQTi ='"]! nQ3 i 
Ibid. Biography of Moses. riK^DI ,D^D^n nm ^ 



26 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

ministers and expressed to them his perplexity at this strange 
dream. A Senator explained to him : This means that a child 
will be born to the Hebrew race who, when grown up, will beat 
all thy ministers, generals and armies, and destroy thy kingdom. 
In order to prevent this to happen, the king should ordain that 
every new-born Hebraic male shall at once be killed. The king 
followed the advice. The two midwives, refusing their assistance 
to the king to murder the unborn infants, were Jochabed and 
Miryam, themselves.^ The latter had foretold the birth of Moses 
as the liberator of his race, hence her inventiveness and extra- 
painstaking for his safety. From an ancient Biography of Moses 
the Medrash quotes that, the Pharaonic princess who had 
adopted the child, named him, Moshe/^ his father called him 
Heber; his mother, Jeqiithial; his sister, Jered; his brothers, Ahi 
Sanuch; his grandfather, Abi Socho; and the Israelites called 

him Shamayah. ''God has listened to our cries." Each of these 
names has its ominous meaning, of course, in Hebrew, assumed 

to have been their idiom. 

When Moses w^as in his third year, Pharaoh was once sitting 

on his throne, his queen at his right hand, his daughter, Bathia, at 

his left, the child, Moses, in her lap, and the governors of the 

empire standing around; when Moses stretched forth his little 

hand, snatched the crown from the king's brow, and placed it 

upon his own. The king and his grandees were astonished and 

dismayed at that, when Bileam, the royal astrologer, arose and 

said : I still remember, O great king, the dream that thou once 

didst dream, and my interpretation thereof. Here, this boy, is a 

Hebrew one, well inspired by fate; he acted that day by cunning, 

and wittingly, he is an aspirant to the crown of Egypt ! Then 

wicked Bileam began slandering the entire ancestry of little 

Moses and concluded with : If it pleases thy Highness, the 

ambitious boy shall be put to death, at once, before he succeeds 

in despoiling thee of thy dominion and ruin all our prosperity. 

Whereupon God sent his angel, Gabriel, in the guise of one of 

the Egyptian dignitaries, who said : If it please thy Highness, 

let a sparkling gem and a burning coal be placed before the 

child ; now if it stretches forth the hand and takes the gem, tlien 

it acted advisedly and you shall order to kill it ; but if it snatches 

1 Iflentical witb the Shiphra and Puah, of the Hebrew text, accord- 
ing to the Med rash. 

2 I saved him (from the Nile waters). 



MEDRASHIjM on MOSES. 27 

and grasps after the fiery coal, we shall know it acted unwittingly 
and may be spared. The king was satisfied with the test. The 
gem and the fire coal were brought and placed there at once, and 
the angel, unseen to all, took up the coal, approached it to the 
mouth of the infant, which burnt its lips and made it stammer for- 
ever. Mosis' life was thus spared and he remained yet for 15 years 
at the court. At the age of 18 years, the blooming youth wished 
to see his parents and his brethren at their slave-labors. When 
he saw an Egyptian smiting a Hebrew. The latter ran to him 
for help, beseeching him : ''Behold this man came to my home last 
night, bound me with ropes, criminally assaulted my wife, in my 
very presence, and now he wants yet to murder me." Whereupon 
Moses killed the Egyptian, buried him in the ground and returned 
to the palace (Ibid 166). 

Curious ! A version of this we find in the story of William 
Tell, the liberator of Switzerland : A satellite of the governor, 
Gessler, was about doing violence to the wife of a farmer, who 
rescues her and kills the ruffian. He is pursued by the governor's 
soldiers, and about being captured, when William Tell boldly 
boards and rows him over the stormy lake and lands him safely 
where he cannot be reached. It is probably an old much used tale, 
borrowed by the Tell legend. Each poet shaped the story accord- 
ing to his own taste and his circumstances. The Medrash, wishing 
to cleanse Moses of the guilt of murder, represents the aggressor 
as guilty of rape and adultery, and about to commit murder. For 
this he forfeits his life, and Moses but executed justice upon 
him. The Swiss folk-lorist spurned the idea of suffering the 
assailant to dishonor one's wife ; hence her husband kills him 
even before the crime is accomplished. According to Talmudical 
law, too, the husband is justified in taking justice into his own 
hands. It is the natural right of self-defense, too often wTongly 
appealed to in criminal pleading. 

The Medrashic legend (Ibid. 167) tells us that Moses was de- 
nounced by Dathan and Abiram. They were quarreling together, 
when Moses said to the first : Wicked man, why doest thou smite 
thy brother? Then Dathan, in revenge^ denounced him to Pha- 
raoh ; who said : I had enough indulgence with that foundling, 
now he must die for his murder. Thereupon the executioner 
smote Moses with his sword, but his neck became of marble and 
the sword splintered and broke to pieces, whereupon Moses fled 



28 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECi^LOGUE. 

out of the country. The king's bodyguard, being close by, was 
blindfolded by an angel, and Moses escaped their vigilance. He 
was then twenty years of age. 

According to the legend, at the hour when Moses was born, the 
entire world was filled with light.^ The same is said of many 
historical and many more mythical heroes of old. It is claimed of 
Apollo, Horus, and Bacchus, of Zoroaster, Buddha, Jesus, Mo- 
hammed, etc. Each aera-making man is born in a dark cave, in 
gloomy and oppressive environments, the masses sighing for a 
liberator from political, partisan or racial tyranny, and at his ad- 
vent the world becomes filled with light and jubilation. No reas- 
onable critic will begrudge that innocent apotheosis of liberators, 
after a life of sacrifice and toil. 

Another legend, still more curious, tells this (Ibid 168), follow- 
ing the mentioned biography of Moses : Qiqnus, king of Ethi- 
opia, went to make war upon Syria. When he left, a rebellion 
broke out in his own country. He returned home and besieged 
his capital, risen against him. In vain did he attack and storm 
it from different points, and many of the besiegers fell in the 
assault. Just then, Moses, fleeing from Egypt, came into the 
camp of Qiqnus. He was 20 years of age, tall, beautiful, strong 
and popular, and became the pet of the court and the army. The 
king soon died and the army chose him as their general, giving 
him the wife of the dead king. Moses was a heroic leader and 
contrived, by stratagem, to conquer the rebellious capital. He 
was then accepted as king, governed Ethiopia for the space of 
forty years, and beat all his enemies. But then his queen and her 
nobles made a conspiracy against him, with the object of setting 
upon the throne her son, by Qiqnus, the rightful heir. Moses 
was induced to peaceably leave the throne to his wife's son, 
Munham. At 67 years Moses left Ethiopia and retired to Mid- 
yan, in the Arabian desert. There he met Jethro-Reuel and 
confidentially told him about his adventures in Egypt and Ethi- 
opia. Jethro thought to ingratiate himself with the enemies of 
Moses by imprisoning him for many years. But Ziporah, Jethro's 
daughter, clandestinely took care of him and had him fed and 
clothed, comfortable enough, during all the time of his incarce- 
ration. Jethro had forgotten him, thinking he was long ago dead. 



iibid. 166. miti D:5iyn ^3 x^ron^ ntj^o ^*?)^^ nrtJ^a ^ 



MEDRASHIM ON MOSES. 29 

when Ziporah called his attention to him, after ten years. At her 
advice and intercession, he was released from prison and set at 
liberty. He then inaugurated his freedom b}'' offering his thanks- 
givings to the God of his fathers, in the garden of Jethro's 
mansion, when he beheld there sprightly growing a sapphire 
shrub, in shape of a staff, into which was engraven the divine 
name.^ He plucked it off, as if a usual branch upon a tree, and 
it became a regular staff in his hand. Now that staff is the 
identical one created contemporaneously with the world and had 
its history. When Adam was expelled from Paradise, he took 
that staff with himself and passed it to his successors. That staff 
came then to Noah, to Shem and to his successors ; to Abraham, 
to Isaac, to Jacob and to Joseph.^ When Joseph died and the 
Egyptians became inimical to his house, his palace was pillaged 
and the staff fell into the hands of Jethro-Reuel, of Midyan, then 
a courtier in Egypt. He planted it in his park, to become once 
the dower of Ziporah, his daughter. All the valiant knights of 
Midyan tried their strength to pull out that sacred plant and win 
the hand of the fair Ziporah, but could not succeed, until the 
rightful owner and successor to Joseph appeared, Moses. He at 
once took hold of the sacred heirloom, which easily yielded to his 
grasp. Reuel beholding that in his hand, at once yielded Ziporah^ 
too, to the legitimate owner of the sacred primordial staff. Zip- 
orah became thus his dutiful wife, adopting all the pious ways- 
of Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah. She bore him two sons, 
Gershom and Eliezer. (Biography of Moses in Yalkut.) 

(Pirke Ro Eliezer) R. Aquiba says: The satellites of Pharaoh 
used the children of the Hebrews as bricks for their strongholds 
alternately with the clay bricks and mortar. ''God heard their 
shrieks^ — refers to that. They offered them also as burnt sacri- 
fices on the altars of their gods," is again deduced from Scrip- 
tural terms.* 

To H M. 3 :1. "Moses kept the flocks of Jethro," remarks R. 
Isaac : God chooses his messengers among the humblest, the 



2See Messiah Ideal, Vol. I, p. 122. ntDDH ^y ^X15i'"' inn6J'"'1 2 
"Israel bowed on the coach," others read: "Israel bowed on the staffs 
Instead of hamita, is read by the Septuagint hamate. 

(II M., ii, 24)— Dnpxj nx DM^K yot^^i 3 
^i^i^n inio DDn« k''!^vi ^ 



.30 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

pastors of sheep, to lead his human flock. Even so Moses and 
David — So Cincinnatus of Rome, so the American Washington, 
the farmer; Lincoln, the rail-splitter; such are the leaders of 
democracy. — "And he saw his vision and heard the divine voice 
from the Thornbush (remarks the Medrash Abkhir) : *'Why not 
rather from some noble tall tree ? For God said : I am in sym- 
pathy with Israel. He is the humblest among the nations, the 
thorn among the tall trees, yet ever burning. So is the burning 
Thornbush my symbol." — The Thornbush burned, but was never 
consumed — is a fit emblem, too, of Israel enslaved during thou- 
sands of years, oppressed and maltreated, yet never destroyed, 
ever burning, enlightening, cheering mankind on in its battles 
for improvement, ethical, political, economical. Its leaders and 
emancipators are taken from Israel's ranks or from those who 
got their inspiration from his prophets. 



31 



Study II. EXODUS IV-VIII. 
MOSES, THE PROPHETS, AND THEIR MISSION. 

"God spake to Moses : Pharaoh's mind is obdurate, he refuses 
to let My people depart. Go and tell him : Let My people go, that 
they may worship Ale in the desert."^ (II M. VII: 15). Here 
Mosaism states it to be its mission to liberate the people, that they 
may devote themselves to God's service. Providence selected the 
descendants of the Patriarchs, to become the race specially de- 
voted to the service of the Eternal, to the higher, the religious, 
mental and ethical interests, the spiritual concerns of man. We 
say the spiritual interests of humanity, especially and particularly ; 
for indeed, the total result of all human development, termed 
civilization, is a compound of many different elements, among 
which the spiritual is only one, though a leading one. Every race, 
€very nation, yea, every outstanding historical personality has a 
mission to fulfill, has a task imposed upon him. Just as in the 
harmoniously constituted community, one is an agriculturist, 
another is a mechanic, a third, a merchant, an artist, a scholar, 
etc., even so among the great, predominant nations, each has a 
special mission to realize, for which she lives and labors, suffers 
and triumphs. And if she neglects her task, she dies, ignomini- 
ously, is eliminated and her place is taken up by another one, bet- 
ter fitted for the work. If she fulfills her duty^ if her allotted task 
is gradually being accomplished, she lives for and with it. Even 
when fully accomplished, she dies not, but is honorably dis- 
charged, emerited and lives, absorbed in the eternal existence of 
mankind. She fuses with humanity, leaving there an ineffaceable 
trace, the imprint of her honorable activity. 

Such tasks were imposed upon all the leading historic nations. 
Assyria, Persia, Egypt, Babylonia had the consolidation of tribes 
into peoples, by war and subjugation. They inaugurated, thou- 
sands of years ago, Bismarck's policy of kneading and cementing 
men together by lead and blood. Greece added to war the culti- 
vation of science and art. Rome organized a world-state and 



•"jnari 'Dv riiS n^^ i 



32 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

framed laws as its cement. Phoenicia and Carthage, as modern 
Holland and England, developed navigation, commerce and in- 
dustries. Germany is, originally, devoted to science, arts, music 
and domestic virtues. Amerca is to freedom of conscience, social 
equality and liberty. 

And Israel, our text says, and history corroborates, has been 
consecrated to ethical, mental and spiritual interests ; he is the 
devotee of spiritual development: "Send My people to serve Me." 
Let us not exaggerate ; no infatuation and no chauvinism, no 
claiming the whole of the work. I do not in the least pretend that 
the Hebrew race has done everything. No, other historic nations, 
too, have largely contributed towards our civilization. Nor is 
our civilization the ultima Thule, without any strong reliques of 
barbarism. Still, without infatuation, we may positively affirm 
that Israel's part in the great concert of human culture and de- 
velopment is a very prominent one, yea, it is the groundwork of 
all true civilization. He represents its moral base and founda- 
tion. Without the culture of man's spiritual interests, to what 
great use are our arts and commerce? Upon what pillars will 
your State, your Laws, your family, your freedom, your justice 
rest? Without the postulate of the one, all-pervading, eternal, 
all-holy God of justice, truth and reason, the very law of society, 
the Ten Commandments, lose their authority, drift in the air and 
lack effectiveness. And without the Ten Commandments human 
society is an impossibility; society would be one of wolves and 
bears. Now the God-belief, the Decalogue, the teaching and 
examplifying thereof, is the historic task and problem of Israel. 
Therefore I claim and justly insist that he represents the first part 
in civilization. Therefore it may be taken literally: Israel is 
My first-born son. ( II M. 4 :21 and 19 :6 . . . ) "Ye shall be unto Me 
a dominion of priests and a holy nation." He is priest, leader and 
messiah of mankind. 

The acute, spirited, paradoxical philosopher, Nietzsche, the 
most outspoken antagonist, the very opposite pole of the Hebraic 
doctrine, nevertheless, frankly admits that the Jews have well 
deserved of mankind, for having produced men as Moses, Jesus, 
Spinoza; books and ethics as Bible and Psalms, and for having 
suffered a fifteen centuries' martyrdom just on their account. 
(Menschliches, Allzumenschliches, by Nietzsche.) 

And this honor of the messiahship, so onerous and so glorious, 
so cheering and so sad, this epopee of the Exodus narrates how it 



MOSES, THE PROPHETS AND THEIR MISSION. 33 

has been conferred upon the patriarchal house. Here is the 
genesis of his primogeniture, the sacred record of his spiritual 
investiture. The promise to Abraham: "In thy seed shall all 
the generations of the earth be blessed" (Gen. 10), begins here 
to be realized. These chapters depict in quick strokes and suc- 
cinct sketches, the great difficulties under which that world-his- 
torical appointment took place. 'Xet My people go, that they 
may serve Me in the wilderness," in this wild struggle for ex- 
istence; that by their cultivating man's ethical and spiritual 
elements, they became the pioneers of a higher civilization than 
that handed down by Phoenicia, Babylonia or Egypt. This means 
our text. Juda had the task of clearing the wild forests of bar- 
barism, of removing the rubbish of paganism, of popular igno- 
rance and superstitions, of implanting the seeds of truth, rea- 
son, fraternity and justice unto all, of teaching the fatherhood 
of God and the brotherhood of men, inculcating human dignity 
and spirituality. 

''Send forth My people that they shall serve Me in the wilderness," 
is the motto of the Hebrew's mission, the formula of his Investi- 
ture. Let them go forth and civilize the world. Let them scat- 
ter and spread over the earth and teach the pure God belief, the 
Ten Words, the one human race, sympathy and justice to fellow- 
men. This Israel taught and acted upon, he alone was sincere, 
others were politic. 

ISRAEL'S MESSIANIC CAREER. 

Over 3,500 years ago the patriarchal people was entrusted 
with the arduous role of the messiahship. It was crowned and 
sceptered and enthroned, alas ! with a crown of thorns, sparkling 
with the gems of his tears, his scepter was the staff of emigration 
and exile, of the homeless wanderer ; his throne was, century after 
century, the pillory and the funeral pile, in the regal robes pur- 
pled with his own blood; running the career of self-sacrifice, 
tribulation and obloquy. Thus he was proclaimed messiah-king 
and pariah, teacher and first born son of civilization ; to him was 
given over the kingdom, not of this bodily world, but that of 
the spirit, of mind. 

"Go unto Pharaoh and tell him, the Eternal God of the Patri- 
archs has sent me to thee, saying: Let go My people, that they 



34 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

serve Me in the wilderness. But behold, thou hast until now re- 
fused to obey." Pharaoh, the type of paganism, materialism, con- 
servatism, the proudest flower of the antique world, answered 
(II M., 5:2) : Who is Ihvh, the Eternal, whom I should obey?i 
So the pagan world has been since answering Israel: What do 
you speak to us of eternal, spiritual matters, of culture, virtue 
and civilization; of humanity and holiness, we knov/ nothing 
about that ! \\ e care for conquests and armies, finances and 
pleasures, for good cheer and luxury, for warfare, additional 
provinces and power. Let us alone with your spiritual con- 
cerns ! 

So spoke the world three thousand years ago. And the world 
would to this day, as three thousands of years ago speak the 
same : "Who is IJiz'h — Adonay — that we should listen unto his 
voice?" What do we care for all your spiritual interests and 
concerns ? Civilization means to us power and good cheer and an 
independent fortune. So they would speak, if it were not for 
Israel's call, ''Send My people to serve Me in the wilderness ;" 
if not for the heavy mission, the efforts, the great services the 
Hebrew has rendered to civilization, to human advance and en- 
lightenment; if it were not for the Ten Words taught by him. 

Nay, I will affirm even more. The world is even now, 3,500 
years after the Exodus, clamoring for the same: ''Who is your 
Eternal?" What are, indeed, your spiritual interests? We care 
for power and good cheer — all other things are either subservient, 
useless or hypocritical ! That is the cant and the trend of popular 
philosophems. And what is the outcome of the recent labors of 
Schopenhauer, Hartman, Nietzsche? Not much more! Woe to 
the people, woe to present civilization, should such views prevail f 
Eook around, let us muster history. Who is the champion 
and support of the present civilization, of spirituality, pro- 
gress, humane education, freedom, work and bread for all ? 
Who is the backbone, the Swiss-guard thereof ? It is the minori- 
ty, the chosen few among the nations, the spiritual and mental 
aristocracy among the peoples ; not the men of the robe, privilege 
or sword. And this true, mental aristocracy, simply, are the 



iln the nomenclature of Egyptian mythology, apparently, that august 
name was missing, but it was included in the Babylonian calendar, 
god Ea, the just, good and wise, the builder and friend of man. See 
on that; my Humanity and Charity Laws of Pentateuch and Talmud. 
See Sayce: Babylonian Religion. 



ISRAEL'S MESSIANIC CAREER. 35- 

extended Israel, the Israel lapping- and gaining over into his ranks 
the best and noblest of mankind. "The Sons of Japheth resting- 
in the tents of Shem.i In these Shemitic tents they have learned 
the true objects of human existence, viz : Not power and g-ood 
cheer, but, 'Xet the people go free, that they serve Me." 
Clear away the impediments of education, growth, mentality, 
bread-winning, physical and ethical well-being. Thus Israel's 
problem is not yet solved and accomplished. He and his Gentile 
allies are still a small minority. Only then will his mission be 
fulfilled when mankind, the masses, will accept and realize his 
platform. Let us expound this; it is well worth while. 

THE REPLY AND ITS REFUTATION. 

The Gentile world has been replying to this for these many 
centuries : ''True, the Hebraic people has been the depository 
of the Sinaic Revelation. True, they have brought great sacri- 
fices to this their mission, and we readily acknowledge that they 
have 2,000 years ago well deserved of humanity. But since that 
time a new doctrine, a higher revelation has dawned upon the 
world. The entire genius of the Semitic race has been concen- 
trated, focalized in Jesus of Nazareth, a Hebrew according to the 
flesh, and God himself according to the spirit; he brought dowa 
the last revelation, the higher teaching, the salvation, Chris- 
tianity, not Judaism, is the Taw. The Jews, not recognizing this 
fact, nor himself as God, Redeemer, Christ, have forfeited all 
their claims, rights and privileges as the chosen people, their 
law is abolished, their role of the messiahship has passed away 

to New Judaism, to Christianity, which has since taken up their 
part; Christianity, not Judaism, has become the true expounder 

of the Bible, old and new, has made triumphant the Decalogue, 
and has taken up the work of civilization. We have conquered 
for it three hundred millions of pagans, we have made it the relig- 
ion of the world, the salvation of mankind. You, Jews, have 
suffered, cruelly suffered; we are sorry, but we are not respon- 
sible for it; you suffered for having rejected the Lord Jesus, the 
Christ. The Bible is triumphant without you, and you can now 
go and disappear; you belong to the past. So Schleiermacher to 
Harnack. 



I M., ix, 26. n^ ont<3 p3K>""! ns^7 D^npNns^i 



36 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

The refutation of the trinitarian argument may be formulated 
thus: True, the Gentiles have propagated the Bible all over the 
world in the West, but they have added to it a most cumbersome 
and doubtful appendage: The New Testament. What is the 
New Testament, critically examined ? It is : A number of small 
homiletic treatises, the remnants of a larger number lost since; 
containing many good things, many mediocre and many danger- 
ous, hard, out of the way, entirely foreign to the original scheme, 
yea, in part, in flagrant contradiction with it; coming from many 
diverse hands, ages and vastly different systems, all super-and 
interfused with miracles and impossibilities, not as corollaries and 
mere paraphernalia, but as its backbone and substance ; with hard- 
ly any new, rational, substantial idea; what is good is not new 

and what is new is not good ; the offspring of an ill-suited inter- 
marriage of Hebrew spirit with Alexandrian Neo-Platonism, 
Egyptian and Greek mythology, lastly hailing from Hinduism 
and Parseeism; with economics, ethics, a state, a community, a 
church, half Judaic and half East-Asiatic;^ with no work, no 
property, no family, no marriage ; relying on a God of love and 
of — wrath, on faith in miracles, rejecting nature as the creature 
of the devil, with despair for all, original sin and hell for most, 
the earth a dale of sorrow, and salvation reserved but for the 
exceptional few, for whom a Man-God died on the Cross; a 
God of love and also of — hell and original sin ; a system come out 
by a hap-hazard compromise between Bible, Neoplatonism, My- 
thology and Hindu-Persian philosophems. This is the New Testa- 
ment, the *'Bible," propagated by Christianity, the New Judaism. 
True, Gentiles made triumphant the Decalogue with 300 millions 
of pagans, but they have stricken out the most prominent feature 
thereof, the very base with which it stands and falls : "I am the 
Eternal, thy God. Thou shalt have no other gods besides Me." 
Instead thereof, they teach trinity, incarnation, atonement, ascen- 
sion and hell unquenchable. True, they have conquered part of 
the globe to that doctrine — but not by reason and conviction, but 
by violence and bribery, by missionaries followed by cannon and 
political supremacy. 

1 Among others, Nietzsche reproaches Christianity with having 
"brought over Asiatic ideas to the West. He exaggerates. The Judaic 
part of the New Testament is sober, rational, Biblic. It is Paul and 
his late Alexandrian successors who introduced oriental views and 
dogmas into the Occident, the Hellenic Christianity. 



THE REPLY AND ITS REFUTATION. 37 

Constantine, called the Great, lived a heathen and died a nominal 
Christian, for political reasons. Chlodowig, the Frank, lived and 
died in the same way ; so Theodorus, the Visigoth king ; and even 
so Charlemagne. He converted all the Saxons — who would not be 
drowned in the river ! Such a convert was Wittikind himself, the 
prince of the Saxons, the baptismal fount or the river was the 
choice. The missionary societies carry the Bible in one hand, 
and in the other, powder and shot. When, forty years ago. Rev. 
Stern did not succeed in Abyssinia, the English fleet and guns 
were sent to assist him. The son of her King Theodorus, a war- 
prisoner in London, has been thus converted ! The missionaries 
penetrate the steppes of Tartary, Thibet and China, invade the 
Sahara of Africa and explore the wilds of America — reading 
from the Bible to their novices and pagans, glancing with one 
eye to their salaries, squinting with the other at the armies behind 
them, and paving, in the name of God, the way for dominion, con- 
quest, rapine, gunpowder, opium and fire-water. This for the 
trinitarian conversions abroad. 

Kind reader ! you will remember, we are here discussing facts, 
history, truths, so we must be frank, not palliate, but call things 
by their names. Now the christologist will object ; These are 
mysteries, supernatural dogmas and views, and human reason 
is no criterion here. To this we remember Nachmanides, a Span- 
ish erudite, in controversy with a monk, on the same subject, the 
monk pleading that even the angels cannot understand the mys- 
teries of trinity. Coolly Nachmanides replied : Well, if the angels 
cannot understand it, how should we mortals do?" We there- 
fore abide by the verse, iv Moses 29 : 25 : Mysteries belong to 
God, plain common sense to us and our children. 

RELIGIOUS, SOCIAL AND POLITICAL OUTLOOK. 

As to the trinitarian civilization at home, during the one thou- 
sand years intervening between the ancient and the modern 
times, Christendom was rather inferior to the Mohammedan 
Orient. King, baron and bishop equally debauched and crushed 
the mass of the people. Few schools, no roads, no safety, little 
industry and commerce, plenty of monasteries, with idleness, cant, 
tithes and privileges, but no rights for the people; wars among 
the princes and mad crusades against the infidels ; fierce competi- 
tion between the spiritual and the secular heads, between Pope and 



38 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

king ever distracted the Church and the State. But even modern 
times did not fare much better. Let us mention a striking 
sample thereof in Europe, the flower of that civiHzation. Only a 
generation ago some 600 princes of the Roman Church assembled 
in council, at the Vatican, and promulgated the syllabus of their 
Church, as formulated by them. They anathematized everything 
truly great and humane. All the noblest acquisitions of the mod- 
ern spirit were proscribed and held up at the index. They de- 
clared man's liberty, civil and social equality, free conscience, re- 
ligious toleration, a free State, universal education, separation 
of Church from State, freedom of the press, of speech and of 
thought, all that was declared impious and sacriligious ; heresy, 
error and damnation. Blind faith and obedience, alone, were 
affirmed as leading to salvation. They wanted a world under the 
happy rule of the Jesuits and the inquisiton, under the guardian- 
ship of an infallible chief — a man who never fails ! Where is 
such a man to be had? Such a man, the Assembly declared, is 
the Pope — as long as the bayonets of Napoleon III. protected him 
against his own people ! 

What is now the political aspect of that trinitarian civiliza- 
tion? A generation ago the two most advanced countries of 
Europe were set at deadly feud with one another. Two ambi- 
tious men, each working for his own aggrandizement and for 
dynastic or private interests, each trying to eclipse the other, 
had abetted two generous nations against each other; for mere 
ambition they placed the arms of destruction into the hands of two 
sister-nations. They have converted France, the vainglorious, but 
generous, impulsive France, the garden of Europe, into a human 
slaughterhouse, soon a social volcano, ever ready to explode. They 
have spread mourning and desolation over half the globe with 
myriads of orphans, lonely mothers and widows, all for mere 
personal ambition. 

And what is our social aspect now, in 1909? Social upheavals, 
universal unrest, camps, navies, dreadnaughts, crushing imposts 
for, and abject poverty of the masses ; affrontery and overbearing, 
gloomy misgivings and threats of the classes ; all the wealth on 
one side, all the wretchedness on the other; with trusts, monster 
companies, on one side, and the defying unions of workingmen 
on the other, both menacing society ; the plutocrat and the popu- 

Maurice Fluegel's Exodus, Moses and the Decalogue. 



RELIGIOUS, SOCIAL AND POLITICAL OUTLOOK. 39 

lar leader, at each other's throat; pauperization, death and an- 
archy staring into our faces. Really it is the age of dynamite 
and bombshells, a silent civil war, each trying to overreach and 
take advantage; yearly plentiful harvests, still daily raising the 
price of bread, meat, all the necessaries ; no consideration for the 
next ; hammer or anvil ! It looks as if on the eve of a social 
revolution by the fourth Estate; the mass of the people, the work- 
men, the laborers, the disinherited lowly masses ask for their 
share. They will no longer be pariahs, but gentlemen ! Thus war, 
paper-money, fluctuation in the street, the market, in commerce and 
industries, at the Exchange and the royal cabinets, fierce compe- 
tition, remorseless, pitiless, legalized war, not with the sword, but 
with crime, poison, cunning and stratagem. This is our civiliza- 
tion ! This you call Christian ascendancy ! 

This is the boastful civilization in Church, society and State. 
This is the vaunted doctrine and these its effects, the seed and its 
fruit. This is the way that the New Covenant has outstripped the 
old one; in that manner have they made the Bible triumphant, 
have they conquered three hundred millions of men for the 
Decalogue and the true faith. In that sense did they do the 
work of human improvement. In that sense did they appropri- 
ate to themselves the mission of Israel, did they realize the call 
of "Send forth My people to serve Me !" O, a Decalogue, with- 
out its base: 'T am the Eternal, thy God?" Monotheism and 
Trinity? A spiritual God and Incarnation? A God of love and 
— everlasting hell? An Eternal God — who died and was resur- 
rected? 

O, Gentiles, the Hebrew Bible teaches : "God made the World." 
He saw and all was well done ; "Man is created in God's image," 
viz : man is rational, free and responsible ; vice and virtue, moral 
happiness and misfortune depend upon himself; the world is 
made for the glory of the Creator,^ and the well-being of the 
creatures. There is no devil and no hell in God's creation. Man 
creates with sin his own hell. The trinitarian theology teaches : 
Man and the world are radically corrupt, and cannot be saved 
except by miraculous grace. Man is the victim of metaphysical, 
external agents, which make him vicious and unhappy in spite 
of himself ; happiness is but a rare chance ! Nevertheless man's 



1 Psalm xix., 2. The heavens proclaim the glory of the All-Power. 



40 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

compulsory, native viciousness is punished with eternal hell-fire — 
except if God chooses to redeem him by his own blood ! That 
is diabolical! That is rank pessimism, old heathen, Hindu fatal- 
ism. That is a doctrine of despair. That is old cruel Baal and 
Moloch mythology ! What crude conception of divine wisdom 
and justice ! What. poverty of doctrine, what confusion and what 
logic ? The starting point, Trinity, is untenable and hence all its 
sequels : original sin, vicarious atonement, miraculous redemp- 
tion, etc. Not Nazareth taught that, but Paul; that is old, Asiatic 
fatalism. Eternal hell-fires, universal damnation, pessimism and 
infallibility, are the train of trinitarianism. 

Thus it must be admitted that the New Testament has not out- 
stripped the Old Testament, the New-Jews have not well respond- 
ed to the call of *Xet My people go forth and serve Me." Israel 
cannot yet fuse with the majority. Israel belongs not yet to the 
past. He has yet to struggle, teach and exemplify, he cannot yet 
depose his armor. His missionary work is not at an end, the wil- 
derness is yet barren. Half of the Gospel is Biblic, the other half 
is Alexandrian, both stand in flagrant contradiction to each other. 
As Nietzsche says : "J^sus tried to rationalize the West, Paul 
and the Nicaean Council rendered it Asiatic, mystic." 

The Gentile world has learned Biblical lessons, but it is far from 
practicing them. The best, the select ones, have learned them, but 
not yet the masses. The best have learned them, but they do not 
govern our society. Society is ruled as yet by brutality, cun- 
ning and over-reaching: England wants India. Russia and Ja- 
pan covet China. France desires North Africa. Germany 
squints at Austria. England looks after the Dardanelles ; Egypt, 
the Soudan. The United States of North America, built up 
upon the new principle of industry and work, not intrigue, war 
and conquest — the United States plunged into war with Spain 
and, annexed on its way, the out-of-the-way Philippines — a very 
millstone upon its own free neck, to become its dangerous 
Achilles' heel, exposing itself to entangling risks, alliances and 
complications, foreign wars and standing armies, the very oppo- 
site of the wise polity of Washington, Franklin, Monroe, all. As 
an offset, England exterminated the heroic Boers and annexed 
their territory, the future United States of South Africa. Capital 
enslaves the workingmen, the department store swallows up the 
retailer and the crafts ; the unscrupulous supplant the honest 
ones. The industries are oscillating, for so is the paper-money 



IS ISRAEL TRUE TO HIS TASK? 4f 

— a dangerous social dilemma! Thus the world has learned the 
lessons of prophetism, but it does not practice them. Hence is 
Israel's part not yet accomplished. He cannot retire without en- 
dangering his mission, the practical, real improvement and frater- 
nization of mankind : the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of 
man. He retiring, the liberal party among the world's nations 
will collapse, he being their nursery and nucleus. Hence he 
must stay and insist upon his task. 

But you smile, Gentile reader, asking : Is Israel really so ideal ? 
Is he insisting upon his task ? Does he execute it, in fact and in 
theory, in the Decalogue, the prophetic ethics, their broad un- 
clouded humanitarianism, reverence to God, justice and love to 
fellowmen? Is the Jew a whit better than the Gentile? Does 
he not look to his worldly interests, even more than to his spirit- 
ual mission ? . . . Dear brother Gentile reader, I am not infatuated 
with all the peculiarities of my monotheistic brethren, I am no 
chauvinist. I know their many faults and shortcomings and 
deeply deplore them. But listen, these salient, ugly features, these 
abnormal faults and vices are not native to the Jew ; they are the 
sediment of two thousand years of exile. The Jew's virtues are 
his own ; his vices are the world's. These harsh excrescences are 
the direct outgrowth, the necessary and logical consequences of 
the world's treatment of the Jew. Such treatment exercised 
upon any other people, would have produced by far more dire 
results. The Decalogue, the prophetic ethics ever uplifted him; 
the cruel, inhuman ostracism degraded and corrupted him; the 
result is the clear, historical outcome! The nations have by far 
better Jews than they deserve. Can you, Gentile nations, justly 
and reasonably complain of your own work, and hold the victim 
responsible for your perpetrations? Do you ever respect him 
for his virtues — or for his vices? for his self-sacrifice, talent, 
learning — or for his gold? The maligned, belittled, traduced 
patriarchal community meekly replies to its critics with a known, 
pregnant verse from Solomon's song (I, 6) : ''Look not disdain- 
fully on me that I am so blackened ; the sun has burnt me. My 
brother-nations were angry with me; they made me the watch- 
man of others' vineyards, my own I could not watch." — An 
exile of nearly two thousand years, an antagonism of three thou- 
sand, and a Ghetto of five hundred; the inquisiton^ the torture, 



42 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

the dunghill as his table, the Yellow Patch and the discriminating 
Draconian laws — such dragon's teeth you have sewed — and you 
expect now that every individual of this martyr people should 
be immaculate ! Is not that ridiculous, monstrous, diabolic ! 

Anti-Semites, you claim : The Jew is not better. ''Did you 
suffer him to be better?" Did you grant him free development? 
If you plant on barren soil, allow no water, sun, air, space and 
proper cultivation, are i^ou justified in expecting a cedar of Leba- 
non? 

But more ! In spite of the long, cruel exile, Israel is yet, by far, 
better than one could presume. Muster human annals and show 
me a single example of a people maltreated as he, and for such 
a lapse of time, and I will prove to you the great superiority of 
the prophetic people, even the victims of the Ghetto : Here are 
colossal Russia and puny Roumania that treat their Jews as 
Pharaoh did of old. The nations around, claiming the Bible and 
Nazareth as their guides — shrug their shoulders and keep quiet ! 
And the Jews — a few drops of water could end all their millennial 
miseries — the Jews meekly bear and refuse to sacrifice their con- 
science. They submit to pogroms^ starvation, pillage, rape, mur- 
der — or to exile and poverty in strange lands ; they sacrifice all 
worldly human happiness to ideal goods, conscientious scruples ! 
Say, you Anti-Semites, can you do the same ? Look at that poor, 
long-bearded uncultured Polander, who, during a lifetime, sat 
on the Russian dunghill, bargaining, haggling his rags for a crust 
of bread for wife and children, daily exposed to the kicks and 
the robberies of the Russian police — he leaves his Egypt and 
Pharaoh, leaves his hut and pittance, and with wife and children 
begs his way into exile. . . 

Are they not heroes ? Heroes in the noblest sense of the term ? 
For conviction, conscience, freedom? Is that not the very spirit 
of prophetism? Can you sneer at them, taunt them for their 
worldliness, their mercenary propensities? Are they not true de- 
scendants of Micha, Isaiah, Jeremiah, of the nation of martyrs? 
Do you not revere your Jesus, Peter, John, for the very same 
traits? Why, then, do you not respect these same traits in their 
brethren, the very present, exiled, maligned Jews? But, you say, 
not every Jew is a Jesus, Peter, or Paul ? Surely not, but neither 
is every Gentile of such a calibre! Least of all are you such 
ideals, O ye anti-Semitic hypocrites ! "Ye seek for the splinter in 
your neighbor's eye and overlook the beam in your own." 



MISSION OF CHRISTIANITY. 43 

Thus we have seen that Israel's mission is not yet accomplished, 
the Decalogue is still a mere theory. 

What then is Christianity? What is its task? Has it failed? Is 
it a historical anomaly ? No ! What is, is relatively, rational and 
good. It has its full raison d' etrc. Christianity is a powerful and 
necessary link in mankind's development. It is an indispensable 
link in the chain, but not its final scope. Christianity is the 
providential bridge over which the Gentile world is passing, 
visibly, clearly, to the pure doctrine of the Biblical prophets, of 
prophetic Judaism. The Christian world is surely not yet the 
New Jerusalem, but it is to become so^ gradually. Prophetic 
Judaism is too lofty, too pure, too rational, too ideal for the 
uneducated crowd. Both, its doctrines and its methods, are above 
the horizon of the masses, even of the Jewish, rabbinical masses. 
Hence the innumerable forms and observances of the Talmud. 
Old Israel himself needed the schooling of ten centuries before 
the religion of Isaiah, Micha, Psalms, became intelligible to him. 
Even since that, he needed the hedges and crutches and handles 
of the rabbinical ceremonialism to reach it. What a bitter strug- 
gle had not Maimonides and his successors against Jewish, crude 
misconceptions of Mosaism ? Even so the Gentile world, it needed 
and needs such a long and wearisome apprenticeship, a prepara- 
tory school, teaching the plain doctrines of the Prophets with a 
strong alloy of inherited notions, remnants of ancient paganism, 
before it will become ripe for pure prophetic monotheism. That 
intermediate school of apprenticeship, between the present and 
the ancient mythic times, is Christianity. The ancient world could 
not pass at once to Judaism. Jesus and the Apostles could not 
bring about this sudden transition. Paul and more so, his suc- 
cessors under Constantine, and the Council of Nicaea (325) 
created trinitarian Christianity, a compromise between Egypto- 
Greek mythology and Mosaism. That the Gentile masses accepted 
and that is trinitarian Christianity. Judaism converts by reason, 
logic, knowledge. The masses need more drastic, palpable means, 
even coercion, even drowning, powder and lead. The Christian 
leaders used that freely : "The aim excuses the means." Thanks 
to the Biblical spirit and the pagan iron, Christianity has greatly 
extended the limits of civilization, has called the barbarous 
Teuton tribes into the pale of humane culture, has abrogated pa- 

( Adoration Prayer). ins IDn ^n« "T n\n^ Vi^nn DV3 1 



44 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

gan, sacrificial worship, has pulled down some of the Chinese 
walls between the diverse races and creeds, has opened and ex- 
tended the view towards catholicity in doctrine, towards a greater 
humanity, equality, right. So Romanism in its time has well 
served mankind and contributed to human progress. For centuries 
of the reign of the brute sword, the Pope, alone, commanding by 
the right of mind, must have become a real savior. Even the 
monasteries had their purpose ! They were the only place of 
refuge for innocence and for learning during dark centuries. 
During that time the Jews propagated the ancient sciences from 
the Orient, into the Occident. The monasteries and the monks 
kindly received them and made them indigenate in Europe. 

But every institution has its time. Popes, romanism, monas- 
ticism, Trinitarian Christianity had theirs. Each is a ring in the 
chain of human advance. Each has rendered in turn its good 
services. They bear, at any rate, some of the noblest traits of 
Hebraic prophetism. The Church, as the Synagogue, has had her 
worthy representatives. Her Chrisostoms, Fenelons, St. Bernards, 
Bourdaloux, rivaled in true eloquence, enthusiasm and piety 
the Biblical Samuels, Nathans, Jeremiahs, Aliahus and Michas. 
When "the scourge of God," the Hun-King Attila, invaded Italy, 
the bishop of Miland, alone, knew how to oppose and tame the de- 
stroyer with purely spiritual arms. The fierce vandals in Spain 
and Africa were softened and civilized by Christian bishops. 
All the other Asiatic hordes, Franks, Goths, Lombards, Anglo- 
Saxons, Normans, who overran the effeminated Byzantine, the 
Roman and the western empires, were civilized and softened by 
her conversion, her spiritual weapons and led towards a higher 
civilization than theirs had been. When Chlodowig proudly con- 
sented to become a Christian, in order to extend his dominions, 
and sullenly entered the church to receive baptism, the bishop 
exclaimed : *'Bow down thy head, before the Supreme God, 
proud Sycambrian !" During the long and dreary centuries from 
the down-fall of Rome to the advent of the Turks and the 
fall of Constantinople, the barons were lawless and brutal, uncon- 
trollable and unblushing in their mad ambitions and passions, 
their pride and avarice, respecting neither law, prince or em- 
peror, club law was supreme. The Pope alone was respected ; the 
Church was feared, papal Rome was the only shield of innocence. 
Many a proud magnate, nay even kings, had to disgorge their 



MISSION OF CHRISTIANITY. 45 

ill-gotten wealth, spare virtue, let in peace the weak. During 
many centuries the Church alone was the asylum, and the Pope 
the only protector of the oppressed. They were the shield of 
justice, the sanctuary of peace, the refuge of learning. Thus 
Christianity, for a time, and by virtue of her contents, the Hebraic 
spirit, the force of the prophetic doctrines underlying her insti- 
tutions, has vanquished barbarism and civilized the world. It is 
she who has subdued the Asiatic barbarous immigrations and 
expunged paganism, because she offered a comparatively higher 
religion and morality. Not her trinitarian theology, but the 
prophetic doctrine was her nerve. Thus Christianity, undoubt- 
edly, has done a great deal of good to the human race. It has 
paved the way to the Decalogue, the Psalms, the entire Bible. 

But it has paid a big price for its conquests : It has compro- 
mised with paganism. 'T am the Eternal, thy God, Thou shalt 
have no other gods besides Me," has been lost sight of. A ''con- 
cordat" has been made with the old world. That concordat is 
trinity. That concordat must be abolished and make room for 
monotheism. The Unitarian doctrine, with its ethics and polity, 
now already visibly dominant among the thinking portion of 
mankind, must also penetrate the lower strata of the nations, 
and pervade the masses as well as the educated ones. The world 
has now outgrown that compromise, the hanging-bridge, official 
trinity; the educational transition period from paganism to 
prophetic monotheism must come to an end and yield its place to 
pure, unalloyed, uncompromising monotheism. The child dwells 
in its cradle, man inhabits the spacious, solid house. The swad- 
dling clothes of the infant fit no longer the adult. They become 
an incumbrance, rather than a comfort or protection. Trinity 
was formerly a stepping stone to a higher doctrine, it is now a 
stumbling block in the way of true religion and science : Jesus 
was no trinitarian. Does not the New Testament quote his 
words : I am not come to abolish, but to fulfill the Law. . ."Not a 
tittle thereof shall be dropped." Again He said : "The first 
Commandment is : Hear, O Israel, the Eternal is our God, the 
Eternal is One, and the second Commandment is : Thou shalt 
love thy neighbor as thyself." — Could he have taught trinity? 
Three Gods, and himself one of the three ! No ; it is his later 
Gentile followers who taught that. They broke the very back- 
bone of the Mosaic Law. And that backbone must be restored. 
Paul and especially the Nicaean Council eliminated this most 



46 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

exalted unitarian principle of Judaism, and introduced God 
the Father, the Son and Trinity. They are to be considered as 
the founders of official Christianity. Jesus, surely, was a pure 
monotheist; he had no share in Paulinian and especially in 
Alexandrian doctrines. The Council of Nicaea, with its Graeco- 
Egyptian theology, ethics and philosophy has had its time. Their 
work of transition belongs to the past. The future must yield to 
pure mosaism, to prophetic monotheism, without any alloy of 
politics, country, race, nationality or previous superstitions. Mod- 
ern Judaism contains all the solid elements of the Mosaico- 
prophetic religion ! it is mankind's faith ; it is a world-religion. 
The Gentile world now has once more to receive the Bible and 
the Decalogue, but to receive them genuine and unadulterated, 
from the uncompromising hands of Israel. There they will learn 
to mind the call : "Let My people go forth and serve Me." There 
they will read the Decalogue with its entire, grand opening, un- 
sophisticated i^ I am thy God. Thou shalt have no other gods 
before Me. — Thou shalt know this day and take it into thine 
heart that the Eternal is God in heaven above and on earth be- 
neath and none besides Him^. Thus speaketh the Eternal, the 
King of Israel and his Redeemer : I am the first and I am the 
last and besides Me there are none.^ Behold all God has made is 
very good^ — i. e., is perfect, for the happiness of the creatures 
and the glory of the Creator; the world is of God's making; not 
the devil's; not for hell, not a dale of woe, no pessimism. He 
created man and woman in his own image,^ viz : with a divine soul 
rational, free, responsible ; made for wisdom, goodness and hap- 
piness. — No eternal punishment, no original sin," *'Be witness 
that I have placed before thee life and death, choose."^ Hence 
man has his own free will, is responsible; by his own efforts 
capable of virtue ; not needing miraculous grace, vicarious atone- 
ment, hell-fire. Thus we see here : One God : pure Mind ; the 
best creation; one human race: brotherhood; one right: justice 
to all; marriage, family, parenthood, work and enjoyment for all; 

HI M., XX, 2. 

2V M., iv, 39. And thou shalt know and meditate in thy heart, that 
the Eternal is God in the heavens above... and none else. 

» Isaiah xliv, 6. I am the first and the last, besides me there exists 
no God. 

4 Genesis, i, 31. All that He has made, behold, it was very good. 

5 Genesis, i, 27. In His divine image He made them male and female. 

6 V M., XXX, 19. Life and death I placed before you... choose life. 



MISSION OF MOHAMMEDANISM. 47 

no trinity, or incarnation ; no devil, hell or original sin ; no mon- 
astery, no impure matter ; no king or priest by divine grace ; but 
a happy world, freedom, duty, work, dignity, justice and bread 
for all; with monogamy, brother-men and sister-races. All that 
is taught and repeated, over and over, in the Mosaic Genesis and 
in the entire Bible, and was in letter and spirit, accepted by the 
Nazarean founder of Christianity. 

Let us now say a word concerning the Orient and the Moham- 
medan peoples. As the Occidental nations claim that Israel and 
his Law has been abrogated by Nazareth, the New Testament 
and New Judaism, even so the Orient affirms that the Hebrew 
Scriptures and people have been superseded by Mohammed and 
the Qoran; that Mohammed is the last and greatest of the 
prophets. He has, indeed, accepted the One God in spirit, the 
Bible and its morals, the Decalogue, the Sabbath, for a while even 
the Atonement-day ; also Jerusalem as his Kebla, etc. And all this 
was propagated among four hundred millions of Orientals. Hence 
is he greater than Moses, and his followers are the true faithful 
Jews. This claim the Mohammedan peoples. 

To this the Jews reply : True that Mohammed at first was, or 
claimed to be, simply a disciple of Abraham and Moses. His teach- 
ers and his spiritual atmosphere were no doubt Jewish or unita- 
rian-Christian. He had probably even some Jewish blood cir- 
culating in his veins. A legend makes his mother a Jewess. He 
no doubt taught the God of Abraham, the El-Elyon, the Universal 
Spirit; with the deeds, duties and virtues as learned from Abra- 
ham ; his theology and his morality : truth, justice, kindness and 
hospitality, peacefulness and urbanity, purity and forbearance, as 
come down from Abraham and remembered in Arabia and Israel. 
But later on came a second phase, a new period in his teachings, 
and especially in his real practice. With success, with conquest 
and victory came strife, war, bloodshed and pride, on one side; 
with the ridicule and scoffing, the belittling and antagonism by his 
opponents, other features came out and got the mastery in his 
mind. There came the evil passions of ambition, dominion, 
revenge and overbearing: he had to satisfy his followers who 
thirsted for carnage, booty and slaves, rapine, lust and conquest. 
So during this second period other principles, non-Abrahamic, 
unfortunately, unfolded and became preponderant. Hence des- 



48 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

potism, slavery, polygamy, small learning, war and conquest in the 
Orient to this day. Could then Israel accept such a practice, such 
a Prophet, such a Messiah, with his Qoran and his revelation ? 
True, he taught one spiritual God and the Bible. But the Deca- 
logue was strangely crippled by that, practically curtailed, if not 
annulled. "Thou shalt not steal, not murder, not commit lewd- 
ness, not covet thy neighbor's wife, house," etc., was lost of sight. 
*'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" — was entirely over- 
looked in Mohammed's and his successors' polity. He accepted 
the heading of the Decalogue, but left out the body of its teach- 
ings. He taught the theology, but not its paramount outcome, the 
morals. Christianity accepted the body, in theory, but cut off the 
heading, the unity of God. Both treated the Decalogue to a 
Procrustus' bed, lopping off the head or the entrails. You see, 
Mohammedanism kept on the head and crippled the body. 
Christianity adopted the ethics without the doctrine. Moham- 
medanism adopted the doctrine without the ethics of the 
Decalogue. The practical, baneful results soon became ap- 
parent in either camp. The Mohammedan exhibits to this 
day the features of selfishness, carelessness, restlessness, war- 
fare, lust, polygamy, slavery, small advance in civilization, 
economical and industrial backwardness, racial and sectarian 
intolerance — the old barbarous military regimen. Let us hope 
that the Young Turk party will begin a new aera. As to the 
State, Church and social conditions in Christendom, we have 
above surveyed them. 

Now, the reason of such flagrant anomalies is, because the 
first teaches the theology of the Bible and Israel, without the 
morals ; the other theoretically inculcates the morals, without 
the doctrine, the divine unity. While monotheism alone is 
the ground and safeguard of the unity of the human race, of 
justice and right to each and all. The fatherhood of the 
One God is the dome to the temple of the brotherhood of man. 
In both, the Mohammedan and the Trinitarian camps, that 
grave momentum was not sufficiently grasped and accentu- 
ated, and was since entirely neglected : either religion became 
a dry, formal creed without deed, a dead root, without fruit ; either 
became a cold theology, not an ethical standard for right-living. 
Hence could Israel not side with the one or with the other. 
Thus Mohammedanism as Christianity are not final, both are 



MISSION OF MOHAMMEDANISM. 49 

but preparatory, paving the way for the higher revelation of 
prophetic Judaism. They did not abrogate it, they are but pre- 
paring it. The creed of the Orient and the creed of the Occi- 
dent are the sharp iron ploughs tearing up the hard ground of 
ancient barbarism and fertilizing it with the seed of their 
mother Religion. They have extirpated the Baal, Moloch and 
Astaroth worship ; they have mitigated former brutality and 
sensuality; they have prepared the peoples for the full Ten- 
Words, for the Biblical God-belief and a purer morality, for 
the call: "Let my people go and serve Me in the desert." "For 
from Zion conies the Law and the word of God from Jerusalem." 
This grand preparatory task they have fulfilled. Mankind now 
is ripe for a step farther. Now let them both come forth, ad- 
vance and merge into the full doctrine and full ethics of 
their mother religion, to the entire and unabridged Ten- 
Words, to the standard of full prophetism : One God, one 
human race, one right, one Lav^^ ; freedom, bread and education 
for all; not gold, power, war; not original sin, devil, hell and 
despotism. Our Church, State and society must take their 
stand upon a Biblical basis and Israel must hold on until this 
basis is established. 

THE BIBLICAL TEACHINGS. 

Studying the unadulterated Bible, the Occident and the 
Orient will learn that this world is not the work of the Devil, 
of the Evil-principle, fatalism, Ahriman or Satan : for it is 
written : "And God saw everything he had made, and behold, 
it is very good." No dale of tears, or hell ! Shall man pas- 
sively enjoy or suffer, in laziness and oriental resignation? 
No ! It is written : God said : Increase and fill the earth, 
conquer and rule the earth, sea and sky, i. e., make efforts, work 
and enjoy! — "Male and female God created man." Hence is 
woman man's complement, assistant and companion ; no poly- 
gamy, or slavery. "Sin lieth at thy door, but thou art master 
thereof," is man's patent of independence; responsibility, no 
original depravity, no vicarious atonement and no hell fire ; 
effort and work bring salvation. All existing races are the 
offspring of one parental pair; thus brotherhood and equality. 



50 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

justice, bread, liberty and fellow-feeling for all the Adamites.^ 
Thus no aristocratic and no priestly privileges, no discrimina- 
tion of race, sex, caste. They will nowhere find in the Bible a 
trace of Trinity, or incarnation ; of vicariate expiation or of 
human infallibility, of hell and eternal torments. There they 
will breathe the pure, monotheistic air of the first Command- 
ment; the one, eternal, spiritual God, calling: "Send forth My 
people to serve Me." Service to God is to do justice to man; 
love of God is kindness for man : to propagate peace and good 
will among men. Leading verses in the Thora are : "And thou 
shalt love the Eternal, thy God with all thy heart and all 
thy soul and all thy might." (V. M. 6:4.), next: "And thou 
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." (Ill M., 19:18.) Here 
Moses, Hillel, Aqiba, Buddha, Confucius and Nazareth coin- 
cide. Thus veneration to God and sympathy for man — not 
political or religious warfare, not shiboleth of birth or privi- 
lege, are the true tests and objects of society. 

When the Gentile world will have accepted Thora and 
Decalogue, in deed and fact, plain, pure and genuine, the task 
of Israel wall be fulfilled; then Israelite and Gentile will both 
be absorbed in the one great stream of Humanity. Both will 
rest at the bosom of their Common Father, the God of the Uni- 
verse, as they come from and finally rest together in the lap 
of their common, all-absorbing mother, earth; as the prophetic 
ideal, "Then will God be One and His name be One." 

Look around, there is progress in history, mankind does 
improve, however slowly and hesitatingly. And this even is the 
sense and the contents of our motto : "Send forth My people to 
serve Me in the wilderness." Bible in hands, Israel was and is 
as yet the Providential messenger to call on the savage in 
the wilderness to become a civilized man, or, as repeated by a 
later seer (Is. 40:3), standing on the shoulders of Moses: "A 
voice calls in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Eternal 
God. Every valley shall be exalted and every mountain be 
lowered and leveled that the glory of Ihvh shall be visible to 
all the flesh." Let us now quote the new leaders. 



iGen., V, 1, reads: "This is the book of Geneology of Adam. When 
Elohim created him, in the Divine image He made him (rational and 
responsible), male and female He made them and blessed them." Finely 
emphasize the Rabbis: This passage is man's patent of nobility and 
equality; that nobody shall cavil his neighbor on account of sex, birth, 
race and social station: All are descendants of one couple. 



THE BIBLICAL TEACHINGS. 51 

After the disastrous war between France and Germany, a 
generation ago, induced by two unscrupulous men for selfish 
purposes, the French democracy addressed the German 
democracy, as brothers do brothers, as fellowmen, beseech- 
ing them, exhorting them, calling on them to stop war and 
withdraw the invading army in the name of justice and 
humanity. "Let us proclaim — they say — the liberty, equality 
and fraternity of the peoples, long live the Universal Republic, 
the equal rights of man. Let us form a union of the States 
of Europe." What great thrilling words, shaking off the old, 
worn-out prejudices of sect and race and country, and sub- 
stituting instead, one humanity and one right ! The same 
proclaimed Castellar and the Spanish liberals : ''All the continent 
shall form one people, and all the nations one family... 
We salute in you the advent of right and liberty." Such are 
the footsteps, the vestiges of the messengers of peace and 
good-will to all. The same tendency we see in the several 
churches. The summits of the sects and races begin to feel 
more kindred. The points of consent are more important 
than those of dissent. A Jewish minister, a Jewish writer, an 
advocate of Jewish rights, in these Biblical pages above, 
enumerates the great historical achievements of the Roman 
and of the Protestant Churches. Some time ago the Evangelical 
Alliance paid a warm tribute of recognition to the part and 
the merits of the Jews in mankind's vast history. The em- 
peror of the Russians started the Peace or Hague Conference, 
moving for an international High Court of Arbitration be- 
tween contending parties and peoples. Already conflicts have 
been averted by such a dawning international Court. In time 
it is bound to become supreme and discard war. The great 
inter-social problems, just as the international difficulties, the old 
and the modern feuds between wealth and poverty, between 
capital and labor, between classes and masses, can and must 
be adjusted only by such future Courts of Arbitration. Thus 
reason and right are gradually and hesitatingly, yet surely, 
gaining ground over selfishness, force and over-reaching. On 
this important theme and its bearing on Israel, we recently 
gave our opinion as follows : 

THE PIAGUE ARBITRATION AND THE PROPHETS. 

"And it will be in the days of the far oflf future, when the 
mount of the house of God will be firmly established on top 



52 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

of all the mounts, whereto all the nations will stream, saying: 
Let us go and pilgrimage to the Ihvh Mount arid learn of His 
methods . . . for from Zion comes the divine word. . . And He shall 
judge between nations. . . and they shall change their 
swords unto pruning hooks, and their spears to harvest tools 
and they shall no longer learn warfare. (Isaiah 11). And a 
sprout will rise from Jesses' stem... on whom will rest the 
divine spirit, the spirit of wisdom and intelligence, of counsel 
and strength, of knowledge and fear of God. . .Who shall 
not judge according to mere appearance or hearsay. Right- 
eousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness his 
strength.. .The wolf shall dwell in peace with the lamb, and 
the lion eat straw as the cow.. ." (Is. XL) Such we find the 
peace-ideal in Prophets and moralists. 

"Here we find outlined the Hague Arbitration, the Peace 
Commission, attempted now by our philanthropists, and our wise 
statesmen^ who recently gathered in New York as preliminary to 
the coming Hague assemblage, to banish the sword and, instead, 
put into man's hands the plough and the tools of agriculture 
and industry: ''That the entire globe may become the Holy 
Divine Mount, full of God's knowledge and good will to 
man, as the sea is covered with water." — That great idea 
of a permanent Peace Court, peace with honor and justice, is a 
Jewish idea, a prophetic idea, of now nearly 3,000 years ago. It 
is just and proper that Jews, descendants from the Prophets, 
should gather around it, foster and nurture it. Israel is a right 
and spirit-nation, and shall be strongly represented at the Hague 
Arbitration Commission. 

"Let me emphasize this with particular fervor. The Jews 
of America and Europe should earnestly see to it that they 
are well and solidly represented at the permanent Hague 
Arbitration Court. They have a right to it, but they also have 
the duty of it. Their right is a historical, millennial one: Be- 
cause their leaders, prophets and moralists have first pointed 
it out as the goal, the idea and the final aspiration of mankind. 
But it is their duty and racial interest. The Jews suffer as a 
nationality, a confession and a race. They are persecuted with 
iron and blood by barbarous nations. They are mortified and 
maligned even among so-called civilized nations. They are 
such as Jews ; and as Jews they are entitled to be represented 

1 Hon. Jacob H. Schiff and other Jews were not missing there. 



THE BIBLICAL TEACHINGS. 53 

at the World's Peace and Justice Commission. There they 
shall bring to the knowledge of the great International Coun- 
cil their grievances, and demand justice as a right for the des- 
cendants of those who gave the world the idea of universal 
peace and justice. They, first, said that as long as nations fight 
there is barbarism, and that, alone, with peace and justice civiliza- 
tion begins. 

The papers of April 16, 1907, published the United States Presi- 
dent's letter on peace arbitration, offering many vistas and points 
very well presented, while others are questionable. The presiden- 
tial letter says : ''Though it is our bounden duty to work for 
peace, yet it is even more our duty to work for 
righteousness and justice. If they are ever at odds, it is right- 
eousness whose cause we must espouse." This paragraph hits 
the nail on the head. To insure peace without justice, fails, 
the mark. All the great despots of history made the same 
plea for their wars, conquests and usurpations, claiming that 
men envy and rob each other, the prince compelling them by 
superior force to live at peace. So reasoned Alexander, Cae- 
sar, Tamerlane, Charlemagne, Napoleon. The laws of Hammu- 
rabi, the Twelve Tables, the Code Justinianus, the several 
feudal codes, all aimed at peace, but at peace without justice 
and equity. They simply developed injustice and inequality. 
The legislator sanctioned and rendered permanent the injus- 
tice or unrighteousness, conditions which had been created. 
The statutes perfected and consummated what war and ambi- 
tion had begun. President Roosevelt deserves well in having 
called attention to the stern fact that arbitration and peace 
are only meritorious when they are gained and firmly estab- 
lished on solid justice and fairness. Peace without justice is 
worse than war: it is death, slavery without redemption, bru- 
talizing men by the whip of fear and hope. 

The letter continues : ''But harm and not good would result 
if the most advanced nations, those in which most freedom 
for the individual is combined with efficiency, security and 
justice, should, by agreement, disarm and place themselves at 
the mercy of other peoples less advanced and in a state of military 
barbarism and despotism; if civilized and peace-loving peo- 
ples, with the highest standards of international obligations 
and duty, would by disarmament be unable to check other 
nations with no such standards of obligation." Against this 
paragraph a closer examination of facts must demur. If The 
Hague Arbitration Commission would ordain and insist that 



54 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

justice-loving peoples should disarm and permit the barbarous 
ones to remain armed, such dire consequences might well re- 
sult. But states now advocating peace arbitration are not 
children and not imbeciles. Their great object and aim will 
and shall be the universal and total disarmament of all peoples 
and nations, civilized or not, and making it a standing rule 
that all international differences shall be settled by arbitration 
and never by resort to war. And next : 

"Since 'ultima ratio zis est' the arbitration board will decree 
and prescribe for every nation, to entertain a stipulated military 
force under command of a general of their choice, which all 
such military contingents together shall be ready to forcibly 
compel any refractory people to do justice, to resign war and 
submit any and every disagreement, claim or cause, to the 
same, one, supreme arbitration commission for final settlement, 
that will secure peace with justice, which our Chief Magistrate 
so well emphasizes. 

"Interrogating history we find this ever to have been a 
method of discarding strife and bringing about peace with 
justice. France was a monarchy composed of a large number 
of duchies and kingdoms ever at war with each other. Louis 
XL, Henry IV. and Louis XIV. compelled the dukes to forego 
war and resort to arbitration or peace with justice. England 
had its turbulent barons and earls; Germany had its princi- 
palities, grand dukes and princely courts, each independent, 
measuring their rights by their power to make war against 
each other and even against the sovereign. They yielded at 
last to the necessity of law and order, recognizing an authority 
to settle their mutual claims on the basis of peace with justice. 

"The United States of North America, the expanded united 
colonies, as soon as they disrupted from England and acquired 
their independence, did just the same. Each state is governed 
by law, not by force, and all the states settle their differences 
by the courts, peace with justice. 

"Should we hesitate to disarm the civilized nations because 
the barbarous ones are aroused and resort to war? That 
would be postponing peace for war; that would be sacrificing 
civilization to barbarism. As long as we have war between 
nations we cannot claim to be civilized. And as long as we 
tolerate international war we must connive, and are conniving, 
at private wrong. 

But one would object: The barbarous countries may not 
submit to disarm and rely on arbitration, but ever prefer to 
rely upon their force? I doubt that. Let the United States, 
England, France, Germany, Italy, etc., indorse arbitration and 



THE BIBLICAL TEACHINGS. - 55 

total disarmament, with the proviso of one, single public force to 
compel all refractory parties, and I deny that Russia or Turkey, 
or Morocco will dare contradict the reasonable will of the 
combined civilized powers, and stand up single-handed against 
the will of civilization, reason and force united in such an 
arbitration court. Such civilized countries, united under the 
flag of peace Avith justice, will be irresistible, war will disap- 
pear, the sword will make room for arbitration, the plow, the 
tool, and the barbarous peoples will have no other choice than 
to submit with good grace to the higher civilization, to peace 
with justice. Behold, what disgraceful, horrifying things went 
on in Russia, Armenia, Roumania, no less than in Morocco or 
Persia ! And the civilized peoples stand aghast, ashamed, 
looking on ! Adopt that policy of disarmament, arbitration 
and a single international military force, and such crimes 
against humanity — such shameful perpetrations — will disap- 
pear. 

''Passing over the discussion of other points in Roosevelt's let- 
ter, we shall close with the remark that it is perfectly true that 
the problem is vast and difficult, and that ''it is better to ac- 
complish something, but in the right direction, than to ask much 
and obtain nothing." But, we emphasize, let enlightened arbi- 
trators and friends of humanity not block their way by lack 
of courage. Let them not despair before they begin action. 
Western mankind is ripe for a treaty of general disarmament 
and a supreme court of arbitration. They have only to say: 
We will, because it is our duty, because it is just, reasonable 
and timely that nations as individuals bring their cases before 
an arbitration court and that only beasts and savages repair 
to war. Let them proceed on this road as slowly and cautiously 
as necessary, but ever uphold this principle and this convic- 
tion, viz : That in the world as it is, in our present environ- 
ments, it is possible, desirable and even for any and every 
civilized nation, correctly understanding her own interests in 
harmony with those of civilized fellow-mankind, to manfully 
agree to submit to arbitration all and every difference, which 
may arise between nations and countries, by an international 
high court of peace and justice, according to law and equity, 
and thus gradually form all civilized countries and peoples 
into one vast United States of the world.^ 



iPublished in Baltimore American, April 20, 1907. 
I add that, having written that to our revered friend, Professor 
A. H. Sayce of Oxford-Cairo, he replied: "I am afraid that as long as 
man Is "w^hat he is, war will go on," 



56 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

Thus this great work of human unification, pacification, and fra- 
ternization, on the platform of prophetic monotheism and the Ten 
Words, is slowly and gradually, hesitatingly, yet surely being 
accomplished. The bright day of the reconciliation of Jew and 
Gentile, of the Orient and the Occident may be discerned on the 
horizon. It has dawned upon the best of all the nations and 
creeds. In the first centuries of the present aera, as yet, the 
world was pagan, worshipping Baal and Astaroth, Assur and 
Merodach, with human sacrifices, unchastity and despotic all- 
power. From the fourth to the sixteenth century it became Catho- 
lic, with trinity and infallibility, with the Pope claiming precedence 
over Caesar, mind over force, right over the sword — an advance 
to be sure. In the sixteenth it became Protestant, strongly lean- 
ing towards the Hebrew Sacred Writ, with some faint recognition 
of the right of reason and conviction. In the eighteenth century 
Frederick II, Catherine II, Voltaire, Leibnitz, Spinoza, Mendels- 
sohn, Kant, and the Encyclopaedists advocated free thought. In 
the nineteenth the elite, the flower of Christanity was Unitarian, 
pleading for a free conscience, a free man and woman, a free 
citizen in a free country : Church, school, press and speech free. 
One step more, one effort more , some positive science more, a 
little more frankness, and the masses will be educated, enlighten- 
ed and gained over to reason, to one God, and one right for all; 
the world will stand upon Biblical grounds, Jew and Gentile, 
Arian, Turanian, and Semite will fuse into one humanity. That 
epoch is yet far away, but the dawn of it, '* the footsteps on the 
mounts of the peace-messenger are discernible." 

CHARLES VOYSEY ON "JEWS AND THEIR MISSION."i 

"What is the mission or destiny of the Hebrew race? The 
answer to it is, I think, to be inferred from their past history. 
What have they been, what have they done hitherto; and where 
do they now stand? 

Eliminating for the present all reference to miraculous reve- 
lation, and looking with a cold, calm, and mundane eye on the 
stream of Jewish history, nothing can be more obvious than the 
fact that, as a nation, the Jews have been the guardians of a 
truth which they consider above all things sacred. They had no 
raison d'etre except as preservers and defenders of this sacred 



iln the London Jewish World (1870?). 



CHARLES VOYSEY ON "JEWS AND THEIR MISSION." 57 

trust. It is nothing to the purpose how it arose, by whom con- 
veyed to the people, under whose authority it was enshrined. 

Whether given by the very mouth of God, or merely by the 
natural agency of the mind of some great law-giver, the fact re- 
mains the same, that the Jew believed something which he and 
his whole race were to guard as the most priceless treasure, and 
to defend with their life's blood. 

Not only is this proved by the endurance through, perhaps, four 
thousand years of that simple belief in all its original purity, in 
spite of every form of corruption and persecution, but it is also 
proved by the history of the various apostasies which are re- 
corded in the Scriptures. It cannot be denied that in the period of 
the kings of Israel and Judah, masses of the people fell away 
into idolatry. But never was the nation left without witness for 
God and His truth. It survived the corrupting influence of the 
favor of kings no less than the threatening hostility of open perse- 
cution. 

The Hebrew Scriptures are a record of the preservation of 
the sacred trust amidst the degradation and apostasy of nearly 
the whole people, and amidst the contaminating influences of 
captivity in idolatrous lands. The fact that it is preserved alive 
unto this day — not merely in the words of a book, but in the 
hearts of Jewish men and women all over the world, in spite 
of contact with every form of religious beliefs more or less 
idolatrous — furnishes, in my opinion, the strongest possible 
indication that in the course of Divine Providence the Jews 
have been perpetuated to this day on purpose to preserve this 
sacred truths and that they have been scattered into all lands, 
among all creeds, on purpose to proclaim it, and to teach it to 
their less enlightened fellow men. 

Nothing, to my mind, is more remarkable than that while 
the Jewish race, since its first Levitical organization, have 
modified considerably some — if not the most important — of 
the ceremonies believed to be of divine origin ; and while Jews 
of this present age in various lands show a distinct and de- 
cided variety in consequence of the inevitable influence of sur- 
rounding customs, their belief in the one Lord God remains 
ever unchanged ; identical in every land, untouched by the 
subtle attractions of a very sensuous and anthropomorphic re- 
ligion. It is not then for the rites and ceremonies, nor even 



58 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

for every detail of Mosaic legislation, that the Jewish people 
have been so marvellously preserved, but for the maintenance 
and transmission and, as I hope, universal spread of their one 
fundamental and imperishable thought, "The Lord our God is 
one Lord, and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy 
heart, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength." No 
boasted unity of Christendom in its palmiest days could ever 
show the unity of Judaism in their one cardinal belief. From 
the days of Abraham — in whom God promised that all the 
families of the earth should be blessed, and of Moses, who 
uttered forth the glorious and immortal song, "The Lord God, 
merciful and gracious, long-sufifering, plenteous in goodness 
and truth" — down to this very hour, the conception of God 
has retained its purity, with all the constancy and brilliancy of 
the sun in the firmament. Only what was once the religion of 
the few, and impressed by slow degrees and under a stern dis- 
cipline upon the whole Jewish people, after centuries of back- 
sliding and apostasy, has now become the universal faith of 
the Jewish people — the one point upon which there can be no 
divergence. Circumcision does not make a Jew, for there are 
races which practice circumcision who are not children of 
Abraham. Rites and ceremonies do not make a Jew, for these 
alter with altered circumstances, and are wisely modified by 
experience and common sense. The "blood of bulls and goats" 
no longer stains the floors of the temples ; the fumes of the 
burnt sacrifice no longer ascend to the skies. But the love of 
the One True God still warms the hearts of devout worship- 
pers ; and instead of our smoke going up to heaven, heaven 
sends down to us the kindling flame of brotherly love. 

Isolation, exclusion, rigidity of forms and ceremonies — all 
these may have been needful, and may still be needful, as scaf- 
folding is to the building; but surely the devout Hebrew mind 
must perceive that these are not the building itself — not the 
true temple which the Lord hath built, and not man. 

The sacred trust, then, kept — the Lord be praised ! — unto 
this hour, never before in all time more cherished, more pre- 
cious than it is now in the dawn of brighter days for the 
chosen race, is the object for which the race was called out 
of bondage, drilled by centuries of painful discipline, sheltered 
and kept faithful through the most cruel persecution. 



CHARLES VOYSEY ON "JEWS AND THEIR MISSION." 59 

To me, once a Christian, but now animated, strengthened 
and refreshed by the same trust in the Hving God which in- 
spired and nourished the souls of Abraham, Moses, Isaiah and 
the Psalmists — a very Jew in my religious belief, though not 
in externals — to me, I say, it seems as if the time were come 
when you Hebrews may, with perfect safety and success, make 
some efforts to lead the Gentile world into the marvelous light 
which has cheered you through your many weary pilgrimages. 
God gives no gift unto men to hide in their bosoms, and not 
to share it with those who have it not. Not even His best and 
noblest gifts of faith and love are ours only to keep selfishly 
for the warmth and comfort of our family and race. The poor 
Christians, whose attempts at your conversion are so truly 
ridiculous, are yet moved, let us trust, by a sort of generosity; 
and though it may be repugnant to your feelings and taste to 
adopt their tactics, you may take a lesson from their zeal. 
Christianity and all polytheistic or idolatrous religions are 
dying. Atheism is gathering its unhappy victims. Anthro- 
pomorphism is still further degenerating into a shameless worship 
of the creature instead of the Creator. Judaism still lives — the 
salt of the earth. Free from idolatry and every subtle form of 
creature worship, inspiring an imperturbable serenity and a 
glowing hope, it is alone fitted to come forth once more as the 
leader of religious thought, the deliverer of souls out of bond- 
age, and the herald of divine peace to those who are without 
hope and without God in the world. 

Would that you could dare to throw open your synagogues — 
if only once a week — to worshippers of all creeds, to hear an 
English service and an English sermon ; retaining on your 
Sabbaths and festivals all your traditional ceremonies as be- 
fore. You would lose nothing yourselves. You would give a 
priceless boon to many who, like myself, have hungered and 
thirsted for words of faith and hope in this wilderness of un- 
belief and superstition. 

PRACTICAL RESULTS OF THE EXODUS. 

Theme: II M. 12 :12.— "On all the gods of Egypt I shall 
exercise judgment." 

What is the practical result of the Exodus? What has man- 
kind really gained by it? What impulse has it given? What 



6o EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

are Israel's contributions to mankind's ideas and achieve- 
ments since 3,500 years? We speak of the new aera of Israel's 
mission and messiahship : Is that pretense or truth ? What 
has he achieved and what may he yet achieve? The answer is, 
summarized, given in II M., 12 :2 : "Over all the gods of 
Egypt I shall pass judgment!" All the gods, all the powers and 
principles, all vital institutions have been changed and reno- 
vated since Moses and the Exodus. Not two stones have 
been left together of the old religions. The entire ancient 
polity, in palace and temple, land and government, has been 
changed and reconstructed, and all was so upon the basis of 
the Exodus and its new principle : ''I am Ihvh," and its logical 
sequels. Let us survey history and we shall find our motto 
literally and grandly verified. 

Egypt of the Pharaohs was the pattern of the ancient pre- 
Sinaic polity. The civilization of Hindustan, Phoenicia, Baby- 
lonia, Chaldea, Assyria in its highest form and noblest type, was 
in Egypt. The best of the ancient Church and State, of mon- 
archy and priesthood, classes and people, habits and laws, agri- 
culture, crafts, commerce and industry, all was there — and since 
that all was declared deficient and incompetent, meney mene 
tekal!^ Limb by limb and principle by principle, all and each 
was removed, an absolute break-down took place and reconstruc- 
tion was achieved. New laws were laid down for State, society, 
religion, family, education, human practice and theory, life and as- 
pirations. And this was effected by Sinai's polity since the Exodus, 
3,500 years ago; really and literally realizing the motto: ''On all 
the gods of Egypt I shall execute judgment, I, Ihvh/' Let us 
have a careful survey of history, without any bias or preconcep- 
tion, any made-up opinion, and we shall be agreeably surprised at 
the amount of improvement mankind has realized since and 
by the principles of the Exodus and Sinai. 

EGYPT'S POLITY SURVEYED. 

I. The base of the State and society of Egypt was religion. 
What was that religion ? It was polytheism ! As many races 
and provinces, so many gods, so many capitals and temples ; 
each deity had its own city, represented in a triad? Such were 

iDaniel. ...^pn XJD ,t<JD ^ 
2The pattern of the later christological one. 



EGYPT SURVEYED. 6i 

Osiris, Isis and Horus, Amon-Rha, Serapis, etc. ; twelve to fif- 
teen supreme gods with a host of inferior deities, foreign cults, 
later introduced, representing aspects or forces of nature or 
heroes ; with hierarchs and priestcraft ; all the gods pictured 
bodily, whimsically, sensationally to catch the fancy, the awe, 
the stupid admiration of the vulgar; in shape of men, women, 
animals, monsters, reptiles, crocodiles, snakes, flowers, vege- 
tables, trees, mountains, stars ; Serapis, viz. : Osiris-Apis, 
being the leading deity; all were emblems of abstruse ideas, 
pictured and symbolized, grotesque images which the people 
took literally and became grossly idolatrous. The leading 
priests alone knew something about their true meaning and 
emblematical sense, they being initiated into their "mysteries." 

All that stupid and blasphemous symbolism, made to hide 
priestly cunning and ignorance and popular superstition, was 
swept away and gave room to the clear, salient Mosaic God- 
belief of the Exodus : Ihvh, viz. : Being, Essence, Eternity, 
All-Presence, Supreme Cause, Providence, Creator, the One God- 
doctrine with its physical, mental and ethical laws, spiritual 
and all-holy. Egyptian wisdom was mostly mythology and 
superstition, symbolic forms for the ignorant masses, and mys- 
teries for the initiated. The educated and the leaders had an- 
other religion, other morality and standard. The Church was the 
handmaid of the rulers, lay or priestly. Whilst Mosaism 
had one God, one law and one practice for all, the priests were 
the ministers, not the masters ; the teachers, not the corrup- 
ters, of the people. 

EGYPT AND INDIA. 

II. Egypt, as India, had several races and different castes. 
The people was divided into separate social classes, with an 
impassable gap between them. A caste of priests with the 
King heading them, as son of the god; a caste of warriors 
with the grand-vizier, deputy of the King; a caste of traders, 
agriculturists, craftsmen and semi-free laborers. And finally came 
an immense crowd of menials and slaves, by war or purchase, or 
inherited, or kidnapped, considered and used as chattels and beasts 
of burden. This system of castes was based upon the swampy soil 
of their theology. Polytheism teaches many gods and countries 
and races, with conflicts, war, conquests, privileges and artificial 
social discriminations. 



62 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

In India castes are a principle of religion, Brahmanism : 
From Brahma's head came the priests, the leading Brahman caste; 
from Brahma's arms sprang the warriors, Kshatria; from Brah- 
ma's abdomen derived the Vaisya, the traders, agriculturists, etc., 
from Brahma's feet, the Soiidra, next all the conquered, the now 
Gypsies, the slaves, pariahs, etc. That system had in Egypt 
some mitigation, yet it remained the leading principle. Mo- 
saism radically abolished castes : One God, All-Father, 
created one human parent couple, hence all men are brothers and 
free ; one man to one woman ; there is no room for slavery, poly- 
gamy, ruling classes, serving masses, castes, aristocracies, pa- 
riahs. Ihvh, One God, hence social, political and civil equality 
of races, individuals, sexes and stations. 

III. Ancient Egypt, as everywhere else, had classes and 
masses, freemen, slaves, and subjugated tribes, the weak 
and poor, women and children ever were somebody's property 
and ever obeyed. The many gods ever w^ere at war with each 
other ; so were the many races at war. War was legitimate^ 
and power the test of right and truth. The vanquished party, 
presum.ed to be condemned by the gods, it was impiety to 
rebel against the victor. The One-God doctrine of Mosaism 
and the Exodus taught as its necessary, logical result : One 
human race, brotherhood, one right for all, God "who loves 
the stranger, the orphan and the widow, "^ who ordains : *'As 
a fellow citizen among you be unto you the stranger, thou 
shalt love him as thyself." (Levit., 19.) At no time is this in- 
culcation of the Mosaic Law so necessary as just now, when 
the grand, luminous idea of pan-humanity is obscured, nay, 
nearly supplanted, by a narrow nativism or nationalism, racial 
prejudice, which really is but crudity, vanity and selfishness. 
The son says to the father and the daughter to the mother: 
Step back, you are not my equal, you are socially my inferior, 
you are a foreigner, I a native ; you are a Dutchman, a Pole, 
Irish. Your mere foreign accent is your pariah-stamp, my na- 
tive speech and manner are my patent of nobility ! "Proud is 
the youth towards the old and the inferior towards the vener- 
able. "^ Mosaism teaches respect and justice to all and sym- 
pathy with the weak and prostrate, with woman and child, 






EGYPT AND INDIA. 65 

poor and slave. Privilege is usurpation; equal, free citizens, 
no classes and no masses. 

IV. In Egypt and everywhere else was the priesthood 
powerful, learned, politically predominant, proprietors of the 
soil. The mass of the people was prostrate, ignorant, priest- 
ridden and superstitious ; poor, excluded from the higher pro- 
fessions and the government; drudges looking up to that sa- 
cred caste as the mediators and oracles of the gods. Led by 
Israel, mankind's ideal became : "A kingdom of priests and a 
holy nation ;"i all educated and pure, thinking and working, 
with public schools and free instruction for all; trades and 
professions free; learning and bread, the soil, a farm and work 
for all. It allows not one doctrine for the thinking ones and 
another for the common people; all are to be educated — all 
realizing the law, all holding the same theories. The priesthood 
was simply one of the many social professions, elders, pro- 
phets, teachers, judges, officials. Thus was democracy evolved 
from Exodus and Bible. That Lincoln, Gambetta, Clemenceau, 
Disraeli, Garfield rose to the top of the social scale, from the low- 
est to the highest — that was achieved by reason of the Exodus. 
The French and American presidents are the historical de- 
scendants of Jephta, Gideon and David. 

V. In Egypt, as everywhere else, the king had the all- 
power, he was pontifex maximus, imperator, legislator, yea, 
owner of all. Son of the god, ruling by divine grace, he was 
the fountain of the law. Conscience, religion, State, people, 
soil, all w^as his, and rebellion was blasphemy. Israel's Exo- 
dus revolutionized these notions : God is king, reason and lavv^ 
are God's emanations. The mortal king is but chief, leader, 
judge, executive of the law. The law is his guide and norm; 
he is but a brother, the first citizen. Three thousand and five 
hundred years ago God promulgated a constitution for people 
and king.2 The king was deposed when disobedient to it or un- 
worthy; he was appointed according to law, confirmed by 
the people, deposed when unfit or mischievous, and rebellion 
was legitimate.^ 



2Critical computation reduces it to 2,500, at any rate. 

3 It is interesting that the first Roman kings were appointed by the^ 
people and confirmed by the Senate; the formula was: "The people 
ordained." (Titi Levi, historia.) 



64 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

We have surveyed the leading traits of ancient Egypt and 
found literally : "On all the gods of Egypt I shall pass condem- 
nation." All its gods, all its institutions, powers and principles 
have been vanquished since, in State, Church and Community. 
Osiris and Amon-Rha and all the other triads, the Pharaohs 
and the hierarchs, the ruling castes and pariah masses, the bar- 
barism in silk, cotton or rags, the entire rotten civilization 
went down into the abyss of time. Ihvh alone with Israel 
remained. Asking then, what has the Exodus and its platform 
achieved? What has Israel done for mankind? What gain 
of new ideas? The answer is: Not polytheism, mysteries and 
incarnations, but Supreme Mind, a nobler world-conception, 
right and reason have been elucidated since. Not many creations 
of worlds, races, interests and wars, but One God, with har- 
mony, justice and eternal fitness, sympathy, solidarity, peace 
and good will is the social ideal. Not kings, despotism, aris- 
tocracy, force and cunning, but democracy, freedom, equal duties, 
and rights ; not priesthood, mediators, oracles and myths ; not 
dynasts, heroes and privileges, with pariahs, ignorance and 
superstition, but free-born men and women, with work, bread, 
schools and education, hearty religiousness, sincerity and piety, 
in deed and in feeling, are since ever more emphasized and 
asked ; not castes and slaves, but equality, citizenship, man- 
Iiood and deeds are cherished. Not woman as Pandora, a she- 
devil, mother of slaves, but as Eve, the Biblical woman, the 
tender, active helpmate, mother of free children, toiling and 
ruling, sympathizing and building up the family, the house, 
the corner-stone of the future; not dominant and subjugated 
races, castes and paupers, with almsgiving, over-reaching and 
wretchedness, but solidarity and sympathy, desiring to lift 
up the poor, the weak, the lazy and the vicious ; not brute force 
and craftiness, but right, truth, reason and goodness, are our 
ideals. The breaking down of the ancient Babylonia-Assyrian 
rule, of the military and, of the priestly regime, and the dawn of 
the aera of right, reason and fellow-feeling is marked by the 
Exodus event. Ihvhf whom Pharaoh pretended never to have 
heard of, saying: *'Who is Ihvh, whose voice I am to obey?" 
and Israel, whom Pharaoh deemed his bondmen and socager, 
^ood for labor and the whip; Ihvh, Israel and the principles of 
the Ten-Words, inaugurated by the Exodus, have in the 
course of 3,500 years changed the world's aspects. From the 



EXODUS IS THE AERA. 6s 

entire wrecked, ancient regime of the Pharaohs, Ihvh and 
Israel and the Decalogue alone have remained. Those Exodus 
principles extended and embodied in the Bible, are the basis of 
the present State, Society and Church. No kings, no military 
regime, no aristocracy, no priesthood, no castes, no slaves ; but 
free conscience, the heart's true religion, public schools, free 
v^ork, right and duty for all alike, etc. ; that is the net result 
of the Exodus, the achievements since 3,500 years. All Egypt's 
glories and powers, all the pagan gods are broken down — 
Ihvh has remained. 

And that is what is designated as Israel's priesthood, his hu- 
manitarian mission, his messiahship, his office as teacher, his 
sacrifices and tribulations, his historic martyrdom and crown 
of thorns — such claims are not pretense and chauvinism, not 
poetry and phrase, they are historical facts, undeniable by every 
clear-sighted, right-minded, unbiased student of history. 

That advance in State and Church, society and civic life 
since 3,500 years, mankind has achieved under the leadership 
of the Bible and the aera of the Exodus ; of Israel as the exponent 
of the pure God-idea, humanity-idea, right-reason-and-state 
idea. Behold our American United States ! A hundred years ago 
it had a population of three millions, now eighty millions ! 
Once a colony, now an empire, a continent, the asylum of op- 
pressed mankind ; without kings, barons, classes and Church 
despotism : "Every inhabitant under his own vine and his fig 
tree." No standing armies and no wars, but arbitration 
courts and a supreme court; new states ever arising in the 
wilderness; best public credit, grand industries, enormous ex- 
ports, schools for the young generation, for all life, liberty 
and pursuit of happiness. This is achieved by virture of the 
Exodus, by the Biblical civilization. 

But is all this really, fully achieved ? Is Israel now superfluous ? 
Have the nations learned all? Even here, in this United 
States? How is it in Europe? How on this terrestrial globe? 
How is it, that even this United States had its recent bloody, 
costly, wasteful wars? How is it with the Philippines? Where- 
fore the sacrifice of the Boers? And the wars in the Balkans, 
Russia, China, Morocco, and the strikes and the pauperism, and 
the combinations of plutocracy, of the trusts cornering the bread 
of the poor and causing dearth in the midst of peace and 



■66 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

plentiful crops?— You see, Israel's task is not yet fulfilled. 
It is being done since the Exodus, but it is poorly done, 
only half-heartedly. Israel championing the Bible is not 
superfluous, no anachronism. He is needed still as long as he 
practices his theory. Mankind needs him yet a while. More 
education, more thinking, and his work for and with 
mankind will be achieved and it will be recognized then. 
When the last remnants of the despotism of classes and 
masses, of plutocracy and pauperism, etc., shall break down, 
then his mission will be done, fulfilled and closed, not before. 
Mankind's historical stages are many and various. Such 
stages are the Chaldean initiator, Abraham, the Exodus and Mt. 
Sinai, Mt. Karmel, the Babylonian captivity, Ezra, Judas Mac- 
cabeus, Nazareth, the Nicaean Council, the Hegira to Medi- 
nah, the Wartburg, the Protestant Reformation etc. But man- 
kind's great historical aera is to be counted — not from the 
French and the American Revolutions, a 100 years ago, not from 
Protestantism, 400 years ago, not from the Reformer of Me- 
dinah, 1,300 years ago, not from the moralist of Nazareth, 
1,900 years ago, but from Moses and Exodus, 3,500 years 
ago. When that Exodus' programme will be fully realized, by 
all, the working masses and the thinking classes, when the 
principles of the Ihvh religion, of the Sinai civilization will be 
realized, in theory and in practice, then Israel will merge into 
mankind, his task being done and fully performed. That will 
be the universal spring, the human Passover, the world's Fourth 
of July, redemption from the despotism of king, priest, igno- 
rance, pauperism.! Then winter — war, hate and envy — will be 
over ! The chilly, gloomy rain storm of guild and creed and 
race-prejudice and ill-will be gone; the buds, blossoms and 
flowers of helpfulness, sympathy and broad tolerant humani- 
tarianism, will appear all over the land. Then the time of 
song and rejoicing will have arrived and the voice of the dove 
of peace and good will, of love of next, of live and let live, of 
universal freedom and right for all, will be heard all over the 
globe. Then Israel's role will be closed. Then the pre-Sinaic, 



1 Solomon's Songs, II, ii. Behold, winter has passed, the dismal rain- 
storms are gone and over, blossoms adorn the ground, the season of 
song has arrived, the voice of the dove is heard in the land. 

imn «^t< linn tJipn '?i^ ...yoEJ^J "iinn pipi i 



HISTORY CORROBORATING. 67 

the military regimen of Assyria and Egypt will yield to that of 
the Exodus, the civilization of right, industry and peace. 

About half a generation ago I read of a German-Jewish 
thinker who, starting from his own contemporaneous environ- 
ments and events, said something excellent to this point, 
strongly corroborating our above remarks on the ideas promul- 
gated during the period of the Exodus and upheld by Israel 
to this day. His stand-point was contemporaneous history, 
but he arrived at the same conclusions as advanced in these 
pages contemplating universal history: Our present times are 
strikingly and saliently marked by country and race mania, by 
an exuberant and mad nationality feeling. May you call it pan- 
germanism, pan-slavism, pan-latinism, chauvinism pure and 
simple, or anti-Semitism, it is ever expressed in the same 
barbarous manner, as victorious in the conflict with our no- 
bler, human consciousness of the wiser and higher pan-human- 
ity. Sadly we see the European peoples daily ousting and dis- 
carding the most elementary duties of human, international 
justice, and enacting harsh laws against the members of other 
nationalities living among them, motifying such harshness by 
self-constituted *'States'-reasons", by w^hich thousands of inno- 
cent families are ruined and rendered homeless. The States'- 
reason thus vanquishes the innate feeling of humanity — on 
principle ! and that is pure, bare barbarism ! That places our 
century beneath the level of those long ago passed by. The 
spokesmen of such "patriotism and nationalism" well know it, 
still they insist, unblushingly, remorselessly. They say: "We 
care not to ride the high horse of cosmopolitanism and hu- 
manity. We care for ourselves and our own, for our race, our 
people and our country. Each and every one for himself." 

The appeal to the sense of humanity appears properly to 
belong to the Jew, the spokesman and trusty ally of liberal- 
ism. For the idea of humanity inculcated by his millennial 
Bible requires him to rise to that of cosmopolitanism, and that 
tallies with the real conditions of his own nationality, which 
has no special country as its own. Israel proclaims the fra- 
ternity and union of all the races and nations on earth. 
Whether their skin be white, yellow, daik or brown; whether 
inhabiting hot or cold climes, of whatever regimen, idiom and 
tongue, they ever are a branch of the same one, great, hum^an 
stock and tree, members of the same, one, human family and 



68 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

are all to live together justly, peaceably, helpfully, fraternally. 
Now, searching the literatures and codes throughout entire 
antiquity, we find that no other people rose to that breadth 
and height, to such a vast world-horizon, a grand Welt-Anschau- 
ung. Indeed, how could they, the old Gentiles, with their 
infinity of country, city, sea and island gods? How could 
they retain any fellow-feeling for tribes and peoples beyond 
their own confines?. . .Otherwise it is with Israel. Saliently 
and plainly did he grasp with his higher God-and-world-con- 
ception, the unity of mankind. He saw clearly the separate 
and special vocation and mission of each branch thereof, each 
having its ow^n task in the Providential plan, but all forming- 
one grand harmony, all in concert with pan-humanity. Our sages 
said : "Each people has its own appointed angel or genius which 
it must never neglect. God created, in his wisdom, the diverse 
tribes and races, in order to unfold and mature all the varieties 
and capacities of human nature, and bring out all the influ- 
ences of their environments." ... In order to favor the reaction 
against liberalism, it has been tried to show the incompatibility 
of the national principle with the humanitarian one. As if the 
sense of family is incompatible with the State-idea! Humanity 
teaches us that each State and each people is a member of the 
one great human family, united by the ties of civilization, the 
reciprocal duties of international rights.. .These ties are now 
greatly relaxed and unstrung, since in every State special 
guilds, trades, classes and parts push into the foreground their 
respective, particular interests. The system of seclusion and 
isolation of state from state, and of race from race in each 
state, is an obtruding, regretable feature of both the hemi- 
spheres.. . .Shall we now, under such ominous, gloomy 
auspices say with certain wise-acres that Israel and his Bible 
have already accomplished their task of unification and have noth- 
ing more to do for human amelioration? 

Open the law books of the old and of the new, present, na- 
tions, with all their cunning states-craft, have they learned the 
Categoric Imperative of duty, a hundred times repeated and 
inculcated in the Sacred Books, the great lesson of pan-hu- 
manity, "Ye shall love your next," *'Ye shall love the stranger"? 
As the sun rises from the gloom of dark clouds, even so stands 
out the benevolence of the Biblical, Jewish spirit which gathers 
and befriends lovingly, alike native and stranger; whose law 



HISTORY CORROBORATING. 69 

proclaims justice and love to the stranger! and which pro- 
nounced "a curse against him who would bend the right of the 
stranger/' R. Akiba, murdered by Roman hands, inculcated 
that ''every man of whatever speech and race, is born in the 
image of God and we owe him our love." A Medrash says : 
God spoke to Moses: "Do not believe that I discriminate be- 
tween Jew and Gentile. Whoever performs a good deed, I 
reward him according to his merit.". . ."We have witnessed the 
brutal treatment of Poles and Jews in Germany. We see and 
are horrified, now, by the same misdeeds in Russia and Roumania, 
repeated even more ruthlessly and shamelessly. Can we say 
that Israel's doctrine is obsolete and supplanted by the advent 
of new agents and times? It needs but an honest and careful 
survey of present history, but an unbiased estimate of the 
trend of things to learn that, the mission of Israel, as the 
Biblical people, in history, is not yet closed and accomplished, 
and to-day less than ever. (From "Oestr Wochenschrift of, about 
the year 1888, in general outline.) 

MOSES, FAITHFUL TO THE LIVING AND THE DEAD. 

(EXODUS 13:19.) 

One of the most noble traits of the ancient Hebraic character, 
one of those features, salient, indelible and ever reappearing, 
making out a distinctive mark of a clan and people, was Israel's 
fidelity to the living and the dead, the adherence to the past and 
to the future, to the race and the family, in their customs, views 
and aspirations. Such has been the strong tie, the unshaken co- 
hesion of the members to the one body of united Juda. Though 
for long centuries dispersed all over the entire terrestrial globe, 
still they felt as the limbs of one social and ethical ethnos, as if 
breathing with one breath and beating with one pulse; acknowl- 
edging their mutual solidarity, their common task and faith, as 
being so many leaves of one tree ; they felt this to such a degree 
that when they heard of some triumph or some disaster of their 
bretheren in another part of the world, they ever sympathized as if 
personally concerned therein, without regard to speech, distance, 
country or condition. Such was old Israel, described in history. 
Such was his fidelity and adherence to the living and to the dead. 
And this leading national trait, historically again and again re- 
curring, is the import of Exodus, 13 :19. Moses took up the: 



70 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

bones of Joseph, who, before dying, had made the Children of 
Israel promise: "When God will remember you (and lead you 
back to your own country) then, pray, take up my bones 
hence with you." — When Moses had matured his great 
design of Israel's redemption, when availing himself of the 
means of salvation which Providence ever holds ready at the dis- 
posal of true liberators and initiators of genius, rare resources 
and modes of wonderful ways and means, which by their grand- 
eur and their extraordinary character, come down to later admir- 
ing and grateful generations as miraculous and supernatural; 
when after long efforts and trials and utilizing the providential 
circumstances, he had rung out the reluctant consent of the 
Pharaoh to the departure of the enslaved people; when the 
myriads of that discordant population hastening on all sides, were 
to be collected in rank and file and be placed according to order 
and plan ; when that host of men, women and children, with the 
motely horde of the riff-raff (Ereb-rab) and the immense crowds 
of flocks and heaps of chattels were to be orderly arranged and 
begin the difficult and dangerous issue from Egypt — at that 
critical, earnest hour, what occupied the pious attention of the 
great leader ? The ashes of the last patriarch ! He remembered 
and did not forget to take along with himself that casket con- 
taining the venerable remains of Joseph, the Egyptian vice-roy, 
the fellow Hebrew shepherd and sire. For that had been his 
wish and last request, as in Genesis 50 :24 : "Joseph said to his 
brethren, I am going to die and God wall remember you and re- 
turn you to the land of your fathers. . .Then do promise me to 
take up my bones with you." So now Moses fulfilled this sacred 
promise to the illustrious dead. Ponder over that trait: Joseph, 
at the head of Egypt, the proudest country of those times ; he, 
second only to Pharaoh, the proudest monarch of antiquity, he 
the "father" and friend of a great country which he had saved from 
starvation during a famine ; Joseph, at the height of glory and 
foremost at the Egyptian throne, before dying, besought his 
brethren to take up his relics with them, on returning home, 
forgetting his sad experiences at their hands, and, remembering 
but their family ties, that they were kindred, sprang from the 
same seed, the same blood. 



THE TWO ARKS. 71 

Joseph preferred to the pomp of a royal monument by some 
obeHsk or in the famous Egyptian labyrinth, the far-famed death- 
city of the Pharaohs, a humble mound in his native country, in 
Sichem, whence he had been torn away and sold into slavery. To 
the superb mausoleum, amidst the scenes of his vice-royalty, he 
preferred a humble hillock among his brethren; they had sold 
him into slavery, but still they were his brethren. What a mag- 
nanimous adherence to family and country, to blood relationship 
and affinity ! 

Whose imagination is not vivacious enough, whose heart is not 
warm enough, as not to feel deeply touched by this noble trait of 
fidelity to his living brethren and to his dead fathers ! 

This noble trait in the old Hebrew physiognomy, unshaken and 
eternal adherence to the living and to the dead, so prominent, so 
deep-seated, so all-pervading the ancient Jewish character, is first 
depicted in the noble narrative we have taken as our theme. 

Consider and ponder over it. It is a gem irradiating light from 
all its points : Joseph, the viceroy of Egypt, prays his brethren 
to take up with themselves his remains when returning to their 
native pasturing grounds. And Moses, occupied with the creation 
of a new nation, on the point of beginning that most difficult and 
memorable enterprise which history has ever recorded as the 
greatest feat of antiquity, Moses does take up with himself the 
venerable coffin containing the bones of the departed chieftain 
and thus redeems the promise given by the dead to the dead. 

In Greece, but more so in Rome, on extraordinary occasions 
and on great conquerors, a special national honor was conferred, 
viz. : When the victorious imperator returned home, laden with 
spoils, from a great and successful military expedition, he was 
given the rare, unique honor of a triumph; he entered Rome as 
triumphator, attended with great pomp, a brilliant procession and 
cortege, gorgeously clad in a purple mantle, with a golden laurel 
on his brow, riding on a magnificent state chariot, bands of musi- 
cians preceding him, guards of honor surrounding him, the vic- 
torious army in gala dress following him, the names of the battles 
won, the provinces conquered and the cities taken exhibited to the 
public gaze ; half-starved, sorry looking, long lines of prisoners of 
war, with their captured chiefs and princes in chains followed. 



72 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

sometimes even, each with a rope around his neck ; the Roman 
people shouting wildly, an immense crowd of admiring, hilarious 
and vociferating mob closing this triumphal procession,^ the great- 
est exhibition in ancient Rome. Such was the highest distinction 
a Roman could aspire at, in the most brilliant ancient empire, 
dating from the very dawn of history. vSuch was the triumphal 
march of the victorious imperators. Compare now this with the 
Exodus, the triumphal march of Moses and Israel over van- 
quished Egypt. When Moses started on his world renowned 
issue from Egypt, the only trophy he caused to be borne before 
his victorious ranks, was a sarcophagus enshrining the sacred 
ashes of a patriarch ! Here is in embryo a leading characteristic 
of Juda to this day. Pointedly and with pardonable national 
pride the Medrash here remarks (ad locum^) repeately coming 
back to this interesting theme : 

"Come and see how much devoted Moses was to the sacred 
duty of fidelity to and veneration for the dead. Whilst all the 
other Hebrews were occupied with plundering their Egyptian 
plunderers and tyrants, he remembered the request of Joseph and 
made it his duty to fulfill it, to practice 'true love towards the 
dead' (Hessed shel Bnieth) to fulfill the promise his sires had 
made to a dying brother." Here is the criterion of a real leader; 
whilst the people are preoccupied with the desires and passions 
of the hour, he fixes his earnest thoughts upon interests everlast- 
ing, teaching virtues by practicing them. 

Again, legend narrates : Joseph, when making his last recom- 
mendation to his friends, wished his body to rest with his fathers 
and to spiritually live with his posterity ; he thus showed his ten- 
der and high sense for the past and for the future. Even so 
Moses, he, too, was pious, tender and faithful towards the dead, 
and he was no less so towards the living. So a beautiful legend 
narrates, again : When Moses, at the head of the march of the 
hosts of Israel, left Egypt and began his memorable expedition 
towards the Land of Promise, he was preceded, not by one, but by 



1 Tacitus Historia, lib. V., 50. Senatus duplicem triumphum principi 
et Caesarem decrevit. When Titus held his triumphal march, the Jew- 
ish war leaders followed with a rope around their neck each. 



THE TWO ARKS, HISTORICAL EMBLEMS. 73 

two caskets, covering two arks. The one contained the ashes 
of the dead patriarch Joseph, and the other was destined to re- 
ceive the two tablets of stone, the Decalogue, the Law of the 
living God. And the wondering nations inquired^ (Ibidem) : 

"What mean these two arks, so diverse of contents and so close 
by each other? Why is this casket of the dead going along with 
the throne of Eternal Life?" And they were answered: "Because 
this dead man here had performed, when alive, the commandments 
there of the Ever Living." Why did Moses and Israel march on 
with the ark of Joseph and with the Ark of God in the van? 
Because Moses and Israel practiced fidelity to the dead and to the 
living, the past and the future, to the dead, dry bones and to 
the living eternal spirit; hence was the Exodus preceded by 
the Ark of the Covenant and the ark with Joseph's ashes. 

Indeed, when closely examining Jewish history since that very 
Exodus, we shall find that it may well be symbolized by these 
two arks, one representing veneration of the body and the other 
veneration of the spirit, representing the race and the doctrine, 
the fathers and the children, country and God, conservatism and 
advance, past and future. No other nation on earth was ever so 
conservative and yet so progressive, so tenacious of the past and 
still so eager of future innovations, so backwardly stiff-necked 
and so recklessly forward and onward. This is perhaps the most 
salient characteristic of the Jewish ethnical temperament. A 
''kingdom of priests" and a ''stiff-necked people,"^ orthodox and 
radical, worshipping the dry bones and the Ever Living Spirit. 
That has been the puzzle of psychologists and the difficulty of 
Hebraic leaders ; the living mummy of times gone-by, and the 
enigmatic sphinx of times to come ; championing conservatism 
with legitimacy, and ever ready, standing on the barricades of re- 
volution; cherishing the remnants of the past and inaugurating 
boldly new epochs. What a variety of genius, character and type, 



(Yalkut, Beshalah) 



74 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

representing both conservatism and progress ! Compare the m 
novator Abraham, with his modern descendants, Lasalle and Karl 
Marx, Jules Simon, Cremieux; Moses son Amram, with Disraeli 
and Lasker ; Judas Maccabeus and Moses Montefiore ! That is 
the Janus head, the two-faced physiognomy of the Jewish race, 
for these 4,000 years, our two arks of the Exodus, the dry bones 
and the eternal spirit, the coffin with the dead ashes, and the Ark 
with the ever living Law. This is the enigma and secret, the cha- 
melion features of historic Israel. Now it may be, however puz- 
zling, that just that double-sidedness, joining past and future, 
constitutes him as the bearer of progress, and these two arks 
symbolize conservatism and advance. True advance is the con- 
ciliation of the past with the future, the dead ashes and the living 
spirit. The past alone is petrifaction. The future alone is a will- 
of-the-wisp; it unhinges and shatters. Both in right proportion 
make for safe progress. History ever represents both these 
stages : Stagnation and revolution, making for evolution, action, 
reaction, and compromise; that makes history, developing the 
spirit of the future from the very ashes of the past. This may be 
the secret spring of mankind's history. Israel is its leaven. He 
is the nucleus of conservatism and the germ of human advance. 
The conservative Moses Montefiore, the liberal, genial Adolphe 
Cremieux, the going-ahead Lasker or Bamberger, are but phases 
of the same Hebrew character. Thus what is the puzzle of the 
psychologist, and the enigma of history, that many-sidedness of 
Hebraic idiosyncrasy, just that is the proper feature of the Patri- 
archal people. As the hardest marble is the fittest for lasting 
sculptures, even so is just the ''stiff-necked people" the fittest for 
the "kingdom of priests," for the vanguard of advancing man- 
kind. 

This double fidelity, to the past and the future, to the living 
and to the dead, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph represented 
during their age; whilst Moses, prophets, Israel have since been 
practicing and exemplifying it. So Joseph was cruelly treated by 
his brethren, yet he remained true and forgiving to them. Jacob 
was twice driven from Khanaan, yet he longed for it. Moses was 
betrayed and spited by his brethren and denounced to Pharaoh, 
yet he lived and labored for them., attributing their spite to their 
ill-starred fate.^ Every true, patriotic leader is ill treated by his 



II M., vi., 9. n^'p nnuyoi nn '\r\pD ^ 



AMERICAN ISRAEL. 75 

brethren, yet he remains true and faithful to their cause. Historic 
Juda for long centuries has been maltreated by his brethren, the 
peoples of the globe, still he is true to their dead and to their liv- 
ing. He rescued for them everything grand and good entailed 
from antiquity; and he is continually laboring for their future, 
for their moral, intellectual, economic and religious advancement. 

Preceded by these two arks, the symbols of adherence and faith- 
fulness to the dead and to the living, to man and to God, Israel 
and Moses began their millennial march from Egypt throughout 
the world. And since that epoch Juda has never lost sight of 
this, his twofold task. He is forming the hanging-bridge over 
the abyss stretching between time and eternity, between man and 
God, the connecting link between the past and the future ages 
and generations. 

We have seen that there is not another nation so tenacious of old 
ideas and forms, and so eager for innovations ; so much conserva- 
tive and stiff-necked, and at the same time so boldly and recklessly 
pushing forward and onward. We have seen that this headstrong 
conservatism is the identical feature, observed psychologically, 
long ago : "Thou art a stiff-necked people.'' This veneration of 
dead bones and ashes, and this adoration of the Ever-Living Spirit, 
this tenacity to his noble doctrines and also to the form.s of the past, 
are the backbone of his continuity and the cross-bar to his re- 
generation. It is the enigma of history. It is the great puzzle 
of the psychologist. It is the difficulty in the way of the Hebrew 
patriot, the difficulty to reconcile the tenacious and persevering 
veneration of the Jew for the past and his eagerness for the new 
requirements of the present and future ; his carrying always along 
with himself, under one arm a coffin with dry bones, and under 
the other, the holy Ark of Eternal Life. This is an element of 
strength, but, if not reconciled, a drawback, a stumbling block in 
the way of improvement, reconstruction and regeneration. For in 
the wise conciliation of these tv/o opposite principles consists real 
humane betterment. To start from the past and, without a break, 
march towards an improved future, to unfold and elicit the 
future from the very past, to distill the spirit from the very dry 
bones, this is healthy progress. 

Now, how is it with our cis-Atlantic American Brethren ? This 
faithfulness to the ashes of the fathers, and also to the Spirit of 
the Eternal God, this adherence to, and this veneration of, their 



yd EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

mortal persons and of their living ideas — is it alive in American 
Israel ? Is it ? Hard to tell ! must be the candid answer of every 
honest observer. Considered en block and generally, the American 
Orthodoxy worship the ashes, but not the spirit, not the aspirations 
of the fathers; and as often the American Reform neglects both, 
the dry bones and the spirit. That the young generation, as of 
olden times, shed sincere tears at the death-bed of a parent, bestow 
an honorable burial, devoutly observe the days of mourning, the 
anniversary, etc., that they recite the requiem Kadesh^ that they 
often remember the event by charitable deeds, that they becom- 
ingly dress in mourning; that we will cheerfully acknowledge. 
American Israel has done well, economically, civically, practi- 
cally, as we shall soon discuss. He even has greatly improved and 
gained over European forms in the Ghetto. 

But, Oh, American Israel ! is that all we shoul remember of our 
fathers and mothers ? Do you think to perform an act of filial piety 
by praying at the shrine of the venerable relics of your sires, and 
entirely neglecting every thing else which was dear to their souls 
and their hearts ? To worship at the coffin with the dry bones, and 
disregard the ark of the covenant of the Living Spirit ! Ortho- 
doxy means correct doctrines and correct forms, the inculcation of 
the first and the observation of the latter, the sanctification of 
both as soul and body. Unfortunately the reality does not tally 
with that. There is no use mincing. Economically the American 
Jew has done well enough. In practical charity he is second 
to none. But mentally, educationally, spiritually, he has fallen 
short of his historical standard. The Orthodoxy, we now behold, 
neglects the spirit of Judaism and clings solely to the observances, 
the dry bones of the past. And as to Reform, it appears to turn 
its back upon both, the spirit and the letter. There is a begin of 
disintegration. The Shiilhan? Aruch Code prescribes a thousand 
ceremonies, they are the handles to hold the Jewish spirit. They 
are the spiritualization of the matter, connecting the body and 
the soul of religion. Whilst Reform minds the spirit above 
the letter, it asks more care for the living doctrines, declar- 
ing the ancient observances as temporal and circumstantial. Still 
Orthodoxy and Reform agree and both equally cling to the spirit. 
But the actual American Orthodoxy seems to mind the dry bones 
and neglect the eternal, living teachings. Whilst the Reform 
exhibited in America seems to care neither for the bones nor for 
the soul, neither for matter nor for mind. Where is the old-time 



AMERICAN ISRAEL. ^7 

Jewish mentality, spirituality, morality, education? Discarding 
cant and looking to facts, we find that life, family, home and 
market all exhibit indifference ; indifference alike within both 
parties. In worship, the one retains all the Ghetto mummies, the 
other exhibits the elegances of modern life and empty show. In 
both is divine service cold, ineffectual, offering nothing to either 
heart or head, feeling or brain. They come to, and go from 
worship — as empty as before. 

American Orthodoxy walks around open-eyed, yet blind, as do 
somnambulists, ostensibly bearing the coffin of the past, but un- 
mindful of the future. American Reform walks around blind to 
the past and just as careless of the future, both parties never cal- 
culate : What will become of the young, neglected in their 
ethical education? Parents, do remember! Your economical 
savings are divided by your several children. Your racial acqui- 
sitions, if well preserved, would pass entirely to each of them. 
Unfortunately in mind and in body, your inherited virtues are 
wasted : Penny wise, pound foolish ! Or do I exaggerate, over- 
draw, caricature the picture ? I^et us have some self-evident stat- 
istical proofs. Reckon ! France has but 70,000 Jews,^ yet what 
a phalanx of superior Hebrew statesmen, authors, scholars, artists, 
does she not exhibit, as among the very best of her sons ? How 
many English Jews have not distinguished themselves in politics, 
in modern pursuits, in secular learning, in the arts, navy and army ? 
What a host of German, Austrian, Hungarian, Russian Jews 
do not stand forth to grace the Hebrew name and benefit their 
respective countries? Now, how do American Jews compare in 
this respect? We have here one and three-quarter million of 
Israelites. A few are distinguished in finance and in industry. 
Many fine charitable institutions have been created. But on the 
whole we have few really superior men. Science and character 
are neglected, veracity and frankness are silenced, pretense and 
bombast upheld. Where are our American Moses Monte- 
fiores, Jessels, Cremieux, Mendelssohns, Riesers, Geigers, Gratzes ? 
True we are but half a century here. Nevertheless the reigning 
mediocrity is ominous, beware ! 

The old Kohanim (Ahronidae), devoted to teaching, worship, 
religion and purity, were forbidden to touch anything dead, as 
corpses, graves, cemeteries. They were to give up all spiritless, 



1 Before the recent influx from East Europe. 



78 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

decayed forms and superstitions, the dry bones of ages gone by. 
They were to constantly occupy themselves with live concerns, 
learning, teaching and inspiring. They were to exemplify supe- 
rior intellectual and moral, humane life, improvement, goodness, 
holiness, godliness. Our American Orthodoxy should mind the 
lesson in its first part : to abstain from dead matter ; our American 
Reform should remember the latter half of this injunction: It 
reduced the observances, but induced no ethics ! Qaddish and 
Jahrzeit and Bar-Mizvah are good, as forms and ceremonials. 
But the sires' aspirations, the faith in God, in the truth, in the 
ultimate victory of right-living, nobility, sincerity, conviction, cul- 
ture, principle, that is absent. They had Sabbath and holidays, leis- 
ure for books, devotion and meditation. Study was the highest to 
them, outweighing all the commandments. They really stood, in 
the Ghetto, intellectually higher than in the mansion. We have 
now not an hour for worship or self-culture. We are wealthy, 
rich in fineries and luxuries, but poor in spirit, culture, refinement. 
How can we make good our historical claim to be the "elected peo- 
ple," a ''kingdom of priests and holy nation ?" By selling the Sab- 
bath and gambling the Sunday?. . .The Orthodox dry bones and 
the elegant reform temples with music will not render us better. 
The Sabbaths and holidays are the time appropriated to bring out 
the "kingdom of priests and holy nation." The Rest and Holidays 
made of Juda the "elected people," devoted to knowledge, to 
spirituality to the worship of the One, Living God in Spirit. 
American Israel, what is the knowledge now cultivated, what is 
the spirituality now aspired at, what is the worship offered to 
God? They have erected proud temples? But how chilly is the 
atmosphere there ! The entire year, save a day or two,^ they stand 
deserted, with all their elegance and pomp ; their lectures and ser- 
mons — dry bones! Nobody teaches or learns. The Prayers are 
read — by the reader, but no devotion and no congregation. Twenty 
years longer, and even that will disappear. At the head of con- 
gregations are often placed men, in every sense unprepared for 
their task, men with neither the learning nor the character of 
their station; men who take their models from the stage, not 
from Isaiah and Micah, who are to cater and fawn, not instruct, 
whilst the conscientious minister is over-ruled, frowned down, at 
last ousted by the ignorant in the yearly elections. It is not he who 

iNew Year and Atonement. 



AMERICAN ISRAEL. 7S> 

guides ; no, he must hush and obey or leave, give up his con- 
science or the bread of his family and make room for a more 
pliable orator. Kind reader! I trust your better conscience will 
approve of this outspokenness, and your good American common 
sense will suggest to you the urgent necessity of remedying these 
crying evils. 

Thus, without the Sabbath and holidays, our noble rest-and 
recreation days, the first calling to our mind the people of spiritu- 
ality, the latter our relation as to nationality, country, history, 
what shall become of our task as the "kingdom of priests and holy 
nation?" How shall we hand down Qur mission to our posterity 
on behalf of fellow-mankind? Or shall we belie ourselves and 
think to do it by the mere forms and observances, neglecting the 
Ark of the tablets of the Ever Living ancestral God, and worship, 
alone, at the sacred ashes ? Or can the Reform imagine to do 
it by the elegant temples, the fine choirs, and the rhetoric? Will 
they preserve the spiritual heritage of the ancestors by costly 
pews, gilt prayer-books, scanty confirmation lessons, and services 
of state, mere show and ostentation ? Have not the ancient Greek 
and Roman temples had just as much music, architecture, and ele- 
gance? and still they miserably collapsed at the onslaught of re- 
ligious zeal? What is needed is conviction, principle, education, 
devotion^ energy, higher humane life. Alas for Judaism, if mere 
observances or temple oratory will be its anchor of salvation ; if we 
shall hand down to our posterity no longer the holy Ark of Eter- 
nal Life, but that of the venerable ashes of past recollections, the 
mere symbols without their contents, or the mere pomp without 
substance and soul. Reformers ! consider : Reform — and no Sab- 
bath, and no holiday, no instruction, no good example, nothing 
but business and frivolity, thoughtlessness and worldliness. O, ye 
Orthodox ! Orthodoxy and no Sabbath, and no Holidays, but 
ignorance and bad example, hypocrisy and make-shift ! Is that 
Reform? Is that Orthodoxy? Is it not a misnomer, either of 
them? American Israel, ye boast so much of your civilization, 
your flourishing condition, your sacrifices for your inherited faith. 
But are you not rather hilarious at the brink of ruin? Don't 
you close your eyes and stop your ears in presence of stern facts, 
of religious, mental and moral decadence? 

(Isaiah 1:2) 'Xisten, O ye heavens, for God is speaking 1 
Children I have reared and exalted, but they have rebelled. . . 
Hear, O ye Lords of Sodom, of what use your many sacrifices,. 



So EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

your pomp and ceremonies.. .Your Sabbath, moon and holidays 
try My divine patience, your prayers are but Hp-service and 
your devotions, lies. (Is. 58.) Call aloud, spare not, tell My 
people their wrong-doings and the patriarchal house their hypo- 
crisies !" Why, we fast and pray but Thou seest not? ''Indeed, on 
your very fast-days you think at your advantage, ostentation and 
amusement. No ! Otherwise is the fast I choose : Loosen the 
"bonds of trusts and monopolies, disentangle the business methods ; 
free the weaker of crushing competition, live and let live ! Then 
shall your light shine as mid-day-sun and your prosperity flourish 
as the Eden-Garden.. .1 

BRIGHT SIDES. 

And nevertheless the picture of American Israel does not lack 
its bright sides either : Bright and cheering, manifold and sub- 
stantial, encouraging to great hopes in a near future. He counts 
up now, in 1909, to nigh a million and three-fourths of people. 
Economicaly all do fairly. A few are wealthy. Many are well- 
to-do ; all, nearly, earn their bread, laboriously, in the sweat of 
their brow, yet comfortably, in comparison with the Ghetto. Their 
ranks count, comparatively, but few lawbreakers. All, even the re- 
cent immigrants, have a decent appearance; are cleanly, orderly, 
providing for the family, saving for the future, sending their chil- 
dren to school, teaching them diverse crafts ; many enter the pro- 
fessions, some even are in the states service, artists, scholars, be- 
ginning to show the brilliant, inherited qualities of their race, some 
faint glamor of the "kingdom of priests" and the chosen people. 
They have at least in some respects, outdone their fathers, in ex- 
terior manners, forms and decent, personal appearance. They 
are gradually throwing off their shy looks, timidity, bent posture, 
with the old-time jargon, their Ghetto mannerisms, the old-time 
neglect of person and speech and habits, the sad consequences of 
the Russian regime, of the late, crushing half-century. They 
are getting less bigoted and superstitious in their views, less of 
sticklers, less intolerant and chauvinistic, a few even are broad- 
minded and educated. They begin to learn civic virtues, to 
respect and cherish their American fellow citizens, keep up 
their noble, inherited, old-time charities. 

Greater still is the progress of the Germanic Jews. They have 
already founded some of the most magnificent institutions for 

iWritten on the Atonement eve, as a reminiscence of prophetic 
addresses. 



AMERICAN ISRAEL. 8i 

education, for the sick, the poor, the aged, the neglected, the or- 
phans and all the striving ones of the newly arrived co-religionists. 
Some of their rich have contributed princely, shedding honor upon 
the race and the faith of Israel, and the rank and file have not 
remained backwards, did their best. And, when we remember that 
these all belong to the disinherited and ostracized of Europe, who 
have in one to three or five decades succeeded so much, that re- 
sult is highly cheering ! 

Thus there is a fine offset to the above mentioned short-comings. 
We do not boast, but we need not, either, be ashamed of American 
Israel, not even of his standing among the civilized American 
races. He is inferior to none. The fact is, there is no cause for 
despondency and giving up. Man's entire standing is just as could 
be expected, just as circumstances allow. The first generation 
of Jewish American immigrants had to look after bread, bodily 
self-preservation, economical, commercial well-being, to cottage^, 
bread and raiment. Competition is fearfully pressing, especially up- 
on the foreigner. He must fight with might and main to ward ofif 
from his door the wolf, hunger. Did not our teachers say : 
"Harder is to make a livelihood than even the passage over the 
Red Sea." . . . "Turn thy Sabbath into a weekday, but apply not for 
assistance."^ Our immigrants acted upon that. Our sages often 
pointedly interpreted in that sense the ingenious verse : "There is 
a time (temporarily) to set aside God's Law (Berakhoth 54 a) ^ 
The immigrant acted upon that ; for a time he set aside the Law, 
the ritual and the ceremonies, to gain a foothold, a livelihood in 
this bitter struggle for existence. He acted as if he had forgotten 
them. Still really he ever managed to remain a Jew, even to 
keep up always the appearance of a gentleman, to remain within 
the bounds of morality and to prepare for the vindication of his 
full historical part as a member of "the people of priests and holy 
nation." A generation has now been spent in these efforts. It is 
now high time to resume the work of rehabilitation and recon- 
struction, to constitute the million and three-fourths of American 
Jews as a notable, significant, cultured and religious community 
within this great American comonwealth. 

It is high time to begin the work of reconstruction of Ameri- 
can Israel. We cannot any longer defer and wait. Hence our 

nvi3h Tinvn ^xi bin ^nnt?^ ncj'v ;5iid-d^ nynps nona ni^p i 
niK^y:? ny di^o — '^min nsn Yb n)^vb nv * 

Often quoted by the Talmud. 



82 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

WOMAN TO ASSIST, 
frankness. I hope not to be misunderstood in giving the picture 
of the state of things. It is in order to show and convince that 
we must no longer hesitate, but begin to bring order and Hght 
into our ethical, religious and educational chaos. We were not 
sparing the colors, but we had to appeal to the Brethren. We had 
to clearly point out, fraternally, but frankly, the extent of the dis- 
temper, in order to energize and induce them to apply the urgent 
remedy. To cure a disorder, the physician must honestly com- 
mence with making his diagnosis. He cannot afford to flatter 
and spare the feelings of the patient at the cost of his life. He 
must state correctly and distinctly what is the ailment, and that 
is the intent of the aforegoing delineation. Such a diagnosis is the 
preliminary to safe curing and an honest statement is the first and 
indispensable requirement to search for and find out the remedy. 
That remedy is at hand, if there is the will. American Jews, be 
not deceived by your commercial competency, your rights and 
your freedom. You need organization, renovation, eliminating 
the Ghetto to the last trace, and constituting occidental Judaism 
on a solid basis. 

A Medrashic legend narrates, when Moses desired to know the 
place, exactly, where Joseph's remains had been deposited, then 
there was but one person of that age alive to inform him thereof. 
It was a woman : Serach, daughter of Asher, the "wandering 
Jewess" of those times. She had lived on till the promise given 
to Joseph was redeemed, and it was she who showed to Moses the 
place where Joseph's metallic sarcophagus had been lowered down 
into the waves of the deep bed of the Nile, the rushing waters 
over his head lulling him to sleep. Then Moses, standing on the 
shore of the river, called out : ''Joseph ! Joseph ! the time of the 
redemption of Israel has arrived. ^ Come, arise, ascend from the 
deep !" And the cold ashes began to glimmer, move and stir 
at this vivifying call of Moses, of liberty and posterity. The 
sarcophagus, attracted by the magnetic power of sympathy, coun- 
try and kindred began to budge and move and rise, and heavily 
floated up to the surface of the Nile, to join the redeemed." 

The legend of Joseph's ashes revivified by the sympathy of 
race, at the instance of a kindred patriot, has its significance. 
Israel has yet two anchors of salvation deeply moored in the 

1 Yalkut ad locum. 



WOMAN TO ASSIST. 83 

ground of history, defying all the rage of indifference, distances 
and times. These anchors of American Judaism are: Firstly, 
The magnetic force of adherence of the scattered members to the 
race ; Secondly, The persevering, instinctive fidelity of the Hebrew 
woman, that irresistible power, that attraction which for thousands 
of years has held together our broken ranks, making them feel as 
limbs of one body, in spite of their many countries and idioms, 
their ritualistic misunderstandings, their untold misfortunes and 
unparalleled dispersion. That power of adherence may yet hold 
good, keep together and re-invigorate the relaxed ties and bonds 
of American and of universal Israel. Next, that magnetic force of 
national adhesion may be re-enlivened, those sacred ties of family, 
blood, history, achievements, faith and reminiscences may once 
more be resumed and indissolubly knit together by the pure and 
faithful hands of the Jewish v/oman, the Serach, daughter of 
Asher, of our days. 

The power of womanhood is comparatively a new social factor, 
well known and utilized in Am.erica. Asia knew it not, yea, denied 
it. The Bible made a great effort to uplift the sex, but the Asiactic 
society, resting upon brute force, kept it down. The Essenian- 
Christian revolution developed the Biblical woman's rights. It is 
American society that practically and finaly uplifted woman to the 
position of full humanhood. In America she is attaining, slowly, 
her natural station as a free-born, rational, moral and responsible 
human agent. Let Israel take hold and utilize that new social 
power, the next after that of race adherence. 

When both these factors, the racial Hebraic cohesion and 
the Hebrew woman prove true, then a new Moses would 
come and sound the trumpet of spiritual regeneration and of 
renewed national life; when the new circumstances will call for 
a new Moses, he will appear. Then will dawn the morn of a fresh, 
bright, sunny day of regeneration for our beloved brethren of 
universal and of American Israel. Then will the epoch of re- 
demption arrive, the Exodus from our modern Egypt, viz : the 
intellectual apathy, moral torpor and racial disintegration, with 
the all-absorbing, one-sided materialsm, and render Israel to his 
calling, as the historical people of culture, ethics and religion; 
the people of work and of knowledge, the vanguard of humanity, 
the providential agent of spiritualizing and sanctifying mankind. 



84 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

As to the inherent, psychic power of adherence and mental at- 
traction of the members of Juda, it undoubtedly exists. But if it 
exists as yet to such an extent as to become a pivot for action, 
a base of new possibilities and national combinations, that cannot 
be categorically affirmed. It must be watched and carefully stimu- 
lated. As to our second factor, the American Jewish women, to 
you the Jewish patriot must look up for assistance in these days 
of baleful indifference and disintegration. Sisters, take the initia- 
tive, nurture and uphold the union of Israel, of the race, of the 
salient doctrines, the noble principles and the practical humane life 
taught by Judaism. To you we look up in this grave moment of 
hesitation. With your Jewish, warm and pure hearts, and with 
your busy, clean hands you shall keep up the sacred fire of relig- 
ion, education and refinement ; you shall nurture that bright flame 
of genuine Judaism in the breast of your husbands, brothers and 
children. You must entertain the sterling qualities of your race, 
fidelity to the living and to the dead, to the past and to the future, 
to wise conservatism and improving advance, to the millenial doc- 
trines and aspirations of your people. You will thus prepare the 
advent of the new Moses, who would surely come, without fail, 
when you and Jewish adherence prove true. Such a Moses 
will appear and redeem us from our one-sided life of money- 
making at any price, from our disgraceful indiflferentism and our 
abject materialism, and make us again, as once, "the kingdom of 
priests and holy nation," the people of ethics, of knowledge, of 
thinking and working; the vanguard of mankind, the locomotive 
of civilization. 

As such the liberal, original settlers here, the English and Scot- 
tish dissenters, the French Huguenots, the German farmers and the 
Irish laborers, etc., have received us on these hospitable, free 
shores of Columbus' land. They have received us with such favor- 
able preconceptions and presumptions, viz. : as the genuine Israel 
of the Bible, of the Decalogue, of "Love thy neighbor as thyself," 
of peace and good will to all, as the "kingdom of priests," devoted 
to the higher pursuits of humanity. It is our duty and our in- 
terest, yea, prudence dictates not to disappoint them, but to show 
them that Israel's object and mission is still, as of yore, to render 
mankind better and wiser. When our ancestors emigrated to the 
Roman world, to the west of Europe and to the east and south of 

Maurice Fluegel's Exodus, Moses and the Decalogue. 



WOMAN TO ASSIST. 85 

Europe, they came there accompanied, as Moses at the Exodus, 
by those two arks, with the ashes of the fathers, and the Hve 
doctrines of the prophets, and they arrived into their new homes 
with their higher faith and a higher civiHzation, they arrived 
there as teachers, as inaugurators of a higher culture. ^ So. the 
Jews accompanying the Arabs to North-Africa, to the Spanish 
peninsula, and later when passing over to France, to Germany, to 
Poland, everywhere brought over and imparted to those 
semi-cultured countries a higher civilization. They created schools 
for popular education, for the sciences, arts, industries ; translated 
for them the masters of antiquity and connected them with 
the great ancient nations. Thus they brought to their \yestern 
fellow citizens a higher civilization and more refined ethics. 
We are to do the same in our new America. We must reconqfier 
our tzi'o arks, neglected during this last emigration. We must 
continue to be here the people of culture, to foster h^e higher 
education and ethics, conscience, honor and enlightened God-be- 
lief. We must not always imitate and admire, but, where necessary, 
criticise, create, improve and bring out higher patterns of citizen- 
ship, scholarship, etc., relying upon the good American common 
sense of the people which will be grateful — and not be afraid' of 
the jealousy of crafty politicians.^ Then the American people will 
not mistake us for mere dealers, for obscure, selfish, bigoted -sec- 
tarians. No, they v/ill recognize in us the triie and genume de- 
scendants of the prophetic polity, that our task and misskin is to 
render the United States people : "a people of priests andHaoly na- 
tion," and gradually, by education, freedom and economic im- 
provements, create for mankind a United States of the world. 



iln my personal hearing, Professor Roscher admitted this, in sl lec- 
ture at the Leipzig University, in the winter of 1885-6. 

2 Such a scholarly politician recently said to a foreign-born natuiel- 
ized scholar: "Forty years ago we used to give oflfice to foreigners, 
now we do not. My pupil will be my successor." Yes, but whether* the 
coming generation will be the gainers, that is doubtful. 



86 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

Study III, EXODUS. 
THE DECALOGUE, INTRODUCTION. 

Theme: ''A kingdom of priests and a holy nation." 

We read in Exodus xix : 2-9 : ''In the third month after the 
Israelites had left Egypt, they arrived into the wilderness of Sinai 
. . .and rested opposite to the mount (Horeb). And Ihvh called 
out to Moses : Thus shalt thou speak to the house of Jacob and 
tell the house of Israel, Ye have seen what I have done unto 
Egypt and how I bore you, up, as on eagle's wangs, even to Me. 
Naw, if you will listen unto My voice and observe My covenant, 
ye shall be a precious property unto Me, selected from among all 
the nations^ for Mine is the entire earth — Ye shall be unto Me a 
kingdom of priests and a holy nation. "And all the people answer- 
ed, saykig: Whatever the Lord has spoken, we shall do." 

Justly the sages remark here •} This was addressed to the 
women and to the men, to all, to pi*rest and to laymen, to the 
young and to the old. Not as with other nations, there is one 
relig'ion for the learned, the initiated, and another for the uniniti- 
ated, the common people. No, Israel's doctrines are universal. 
The^.know no particularism; and even so was the reply universal, 
all accepted the mission. 

We?|e^hty and pregnant is this introduction to the Decalogue : ''Ye 
have geen how I have dealt with Egypt — the pattern of ancient 
polytheisnv- Now, if you wifl inaugurate and adhere to my cove- 
nant, fhe civilization of monotheism, ye shall be my specially 
elected and consecrated people, among all the other nations, for 
all of them are mine. Ye shall be my kingdom of priests among 
the nations of the earth." Thus Israel is not a contradiction, not 
an apposition to, not antagonizing the other nations. No ! He is 
their complement, leading on to higher phases and developments, 
in church, state and society, in faith, knowledge and humane life. 
Thus here, at the very start, Mosaism constitutes Israel as the 
priestly l!tader, in full harmony and in perfect fraternity with his 
sister races of the human kind ; and that is of extreme importance. 
However much the Mosaic lawgiver abominated the idolatrous 
ways of the antique peoples, he never confounded the latter ones 
with their idolatry, he ever conceived them as forming but one 

Yalkut ad locum Dn^JH n^5< — D^Ji^iH npX i 



THE DECALOGUE INTRODUCTION. 87 

with mankind, as part of the one human race, as kindred and 
brothers, as of the same parental stock, made by the same divine 
Creator, of the same social nature and the same ethical interests. 
He taught his own people another theology, other cosmic views, 
nobler morals and manners, but ever compatible with the other 
peoples, framed so as to gradually become the doctrine of all of 
them.i He never entertained race prejudice nor any native, local 
bias. "Mine is all the earth ; Mine are all the nations." No pro- 
vincial god and no racial god ; the Deity is universal and humanity 
is universal! How sublime! How far above the horizon of 
heathen lawgivers! Whether the Decalogue be the germ and 
nucleus, or whether it be the epitome of the principles of the 
Mosaic Legislation, be it that the Sinaic Ten Words are the 
revelation of three thousand five hundred years ago, or as ^'higher 
criticism" gratuitously assumes, of but two thousand five hundred 
years ago, at any rate it is here offered us with all the solemnity 
of an Organic Law, as the Charter-Magna, the Great Charter 
of Israel's nationality, as his religious, moral, legal and social 
Constitution, as a summary and base of his entire legislation. 
Now here, at this solemn turn-point, it lays down as its corner- 
stone, the universal God-humanity-and-right-idea : Israel is one 
of the nations, but chosen and specially selected to uphold a new 
civilization, gradually to be introduced among all the races, with 
an outline of laws fit to become the rule of all the peoples and 
countries ; nothing is timely, local, or national. Here is a unique 
and sublime universalism, towering above all antiquity. 

A KINGDOM OF PRIESTS. 

Here is the gist and scope, the pith and marrow, the precious 
outcome of the preparatory efforts of the patriarchs and of the 
Exodus. What was the result of the lives of Abraham, Isaac 
and Jacob? What was the object of the Exodus? To create and 
establish the model ethical ethnos, ''a kingdom of priests and holy, 
spiritual nation." The labors of the three Sires and those of 
Moses and Aaron were but the preliminary, the necessary steps 
towards calling forth a people devoted to the mental, moral and 
spiritual interests of mankind. The entire civilization, Egyptian, 



iLong before Kant, lie set up the rule of conduct as the fittest to 
become universal. 



88 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

Babylonian or Phoenician, previous to that aera, was one-sided, a 
national one. With the Exodus and Sinai spiritual interests en- 
tered largely into the combinations of the lawgivers and initiators 
of society, state and church. 

We have above examined what mankind has profited since the 
Exodus. The preliminary steps to that was the creation of a 
.providential live instrument fit to bring about those achievements. 
This is "the people of priests and holy-spirit nation," a nation 
..wholly devoted to mental and ethical concerns. The previous 
civilization had little of such features. Consider it carefully, it was 
noisy and brilliant, but not much moral and mental; it was lus- 
frous, not warm and cheering. It was cold and dreary, a narrow 
egoism was its root, and despotism, priestly and princely, its 
chief resources for shaping and molding the savages into cul- 
tured communities.^ With the Exodus new features came into 
play, that which became the spiritual leaven of the human species. 

Consider : Comfortable clothes, an elegant home, an orderly 
State, are invariably parts of civilization, but not yet the highest 
civilization. The material elements of human existence, of civil 
life, though by no means unworthy of our consideration, are not 
yet the objects of human life itself, not yet its highest aim. 
Bread feeds and sustains the body, it repairs the wear and 
tear of our daily waste ; but it has besides a higher 
import, it restores the integrity of the brain, the seat of the 
intellect. The best part of what we eat today is soon converted, 
not only into bone, fat and muscle, but also into nerve and brain, 
into thought and feeling. Even so our comfortable house, means 
materially a desirable place or retreat from the inclemency of the 
weather, rain and snow, cold and heat, but morally a home is a 
domestic temple of virtue, refinement and happiness. Marriage 
and family mean, first, the restoration of the passing generation, 
the conservation of the race, mutual helpfulness in the battle for 
existence; but in a higher sense they mean the harmonious and 
sympathetic co-existence, the efflorescent development of social, 
moral and intellectual beings, based upon identical natures, inter- 
ests, similarity of temperament and tastes, a union of hearts and 
feelings, where each party's happiness is enhanced by the happi- 

iLes nations les plus eclairees, Chaldeens, Egyptians, Graeco-Ro- 
maines, etaient les plus avenglees sur la religion. . .Bossuet, Discours 
sur I'histoire Universelle 249. 



A KINGDOM OF PRIESTS. 89 

ness of the other; such are husband and wife, parent and children ; 
their self-sacrifice, not self-interest, becomes the criterion of real, 
genuine sympathy, the true corner-stone of the family connection. 
Even so aims the State, first and plainly, at securing the lives, 
limbs and property of its inhabitants. Security is the first task 
of the State, but in a higher sense, it aims at guaranteeing and 
facilitating our legitimate efforts, possibilities and chances in life, 
fair justice, education, a well-intentioned society and its amenities, 
bodily and ethical improvements. It insures to us all the oppor- 
tunities of becoming more refined and civilized beings ; with as 
much physical, intellectual, moral happiness as man is capable of. 
So it is with the objects of home, food and State, and so every- 
thing else. 

SINAI'S CIVILIZATION. 

Thus we have seen everything has a relative and manifold sig- 
nificance. All private comforts and supplies and all public insti- 
tutions have many aspects and bearings. They are to answer to 
the needs of the body first, and next to those of the mind. Now* 
the entire ancient world, having hardly a word for and an idea of 
mind, in our sense, all their civilization, even the most boasted one,' 
even that of the famed Greek society, was mostly but material. 
To secure as much sensual pleasure as possible, to avoid pain and 
labor, worry and disappointment, to protect life and limb, to 
secure property and ambition, to render existence agreeable, that 
was all the object of ancient civilization, yea, of religion itself. 
Religion meant the performance of the rites and ceremonies by 
which man hoped to propitiate the envy and jealousy of the gods, 
so as to let him alone and not interfere with his safety, his schemes 
and his pleasures. So man sacrificed to them his best, even his 
eldest son, his loveliest daughter, in order to gain terrestrial 
favors. A distressed nation offered on the alter her leader, her- 
crown-prince, or hero, that she may gain victory or freedom. Such 
acted King Codrus of Athens, Mesha of Moab, Judge Jephta, the' 
Greek Agamemnon.^ Such was rehgion. Man bribed the gods 
for their favors ; the bribe and the favors were material. Mind was 
not yet known, all was yet sensuous, all the cares and toils were 
for material goods. 

iJudges xi. — (Homer) Agamemnon sacrificed Iphigenia to please the 
gods and obtain favorable winds for Troy, conforming to the augury 
of Kaihas, the priest. 



90 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

Man, as a spiritual and intellectual being, was yet in the back- 
ground. His aim was pleasure and power, not duty ; momentary 
needs and gratifications, not harmonious development of all his 
innate faculties. Such it was in hoary antiquity, before the aera of 
Sinai. With this aera begins the striving for a higher civilization 
one with moral purposes. Nor is it even today fully and substan- 
tantially victorious with the majority of the people. When one 
considers how many hours are passed in the arms of pleasure and 
sloth, in the solicitude for the body, exclusively, and in pernicious 
recreations, etc., one will find out that with many of the upper and 
the lower strata, scarcely one hour in a thousand is devoted to 
higher, nobler interests. So it is to this day, after more than 
three thousand years since the Sinaic epoch. Whilst before that 
period, man lived constantly in the material world. It was the 
;time of idolatry, the worship of the senses, and the total neglect 
of the spiritual parts of human nature. 

Providence, therefore, stepped in on behalf of man's advance. 
God selected a living instrument for his revelations and improve- 
Oients. God sent Moses, the liberator, with the world-redeeming 
message to the descendents of the Patriarchs, as the advance 
guard of mankind. *'Ye shall be unto Me a kingdom of priests 
and a holy nation." Ye Israelites shall be set apart from among 
the peoples of the earth ; ye shall be devoted, body and soul, heart, 
head and hand, to the spiritual domain, to man's unfolding, morally 
and intellectually, to the adoration of the One God, instead of 
idolatry ; to the culture of virtue instead of pleasure, of mind in- 
stead of matter, of thought in place of form. You shall study and 
cultivate the duties of man above his momentary interests, the 
constant harmonious development of the human faculties^ not sole- 
ly the sensuous gratifications of the moment. Each and every 
one of you shall be a citizen of that "priestly kingdom," that 
"kingdom of heaven" to bring upon the earth ; that kingdom of 
priests, administering to man's welfare, not alone of the privileged 
classes who increase his woes, not of men who lay claim to tithes 
t;ajid temporal dominion, who feed on the good things of the 
world and offer mythology to their neighbors ; who claim the right 
to loosen and to bind, to domineer, enjoy and enslave, and block 
all popular improvements. No ; but a priestly people whose mem- 
bers, all, are educated, know their duty, do it, teach it, who learn, 
think and work, each for himself and his fellowmen. 



PRE-SINAIC CIVILIZATION. 91 

Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia, Tyre had a State, colonies, nations, 
armies, conquests, laws, arts, commerce, dynasts and warricrs, 
clans, races and priestly castes. They had also institutions aiming- 
at religion, worship, our ''Church." But the Church was but the 
handmaid of and subservient to the prince, and the priest was his 
clerk, his tool. With Pythagoras, Socrates, Aristotle and Plato, 
a glimpse of mind came into the consciousness of the philosopliers. 
Yet that was out of reach of the positive Lawgiver, legislating for 
the masses, for the people knew nothing of it. The form, the 
external outline, or the beauty of the body was the nearest popu- 
lar approach to the conception of spirit, soul, or mind. ]\lind 
as essentially different from body is a Mosaic idea. Already in 
the Creation story we find it distinctly emphasized (Gen. I and 
III): ''Elohim formed man in his own image... He breathed 
into his nostrils a breath of life." So ten centuries before 'Plato, 
w^ith IMosaism, mind dawned upon the world. Then began a new 
onward movement. The material interests began to subordinate 
themselves under the mental, moral and spiritual ones. Moses 
created a people to be its own priest, with no divine^ sacredotal 
caste. A small class, without lands, with a precarious subsistence, 
was appointed to attend on worship. (More anciently suchtnay 
have been the noble-born or the first-born sons).^ Moses insti- 
tuted the Levites ; whilst the entire people he set apartj among^U 
the nations then existing, to cultivate and to stimulate the etlaical 
interests of the human race. A further subdivision of functions 
took place and there was substituted the tribe of tlie Levites ^nd 
the Ahronides, because the people had to look after their bodily and 
political interests. So, were the Ahronides especially entrusted 
with the Temple service. Nevertheless the salient Mosaic scope 
was, and remained, that the entire people is the people of t^Dd, 
of spirituality, the ethical nation, the priesthood of mankina, with 
a cosmopolitan, humanitarian tendency expressed in its Messiah 
ideal. Indeed the Jewish messianic Idea ever was cosmopolitan 
and humanitarian. That was to be a great and holy man who 
would gather all the tribes of Israel and all the nations ol tbe 
earth, lead them to Zion as the world's spiritual capital, under fhis 



1 (II M., xxiv., 11) The select ones. — Malmonldes <ikiid^ 

I, 15, throws out a hint that these may have had yet crude materialistic 
notions about Deity. Later the tribe of Levi and especially the Ahron- 
ides took their place who assisted in elaborating a nobler and Jnore 
correct God-idea. 



92 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

aegis of the One God of the universe, lead them all to the Mount 
of- God, do away with strife, tears and war, make justice and 
knowledge arbitrate among men and exchange the sword for the 
plmigh and the tool (Is. II and XI; Micha IV). What a grand, 
noble, wakeful prophet's dream ! Three thousand years have passed 
over this vision^ and now philanthropists and true statesmen begin 
to realize that dream as the Hague Court of Peace and Arbitra- 
tion. 

in as much and so far as a special country and people, Israel 
had his extra priestly tribe. But in -so far as a people among the 
peoples, as a fraction of humanity, scattered, among all the races 
and lands, Israel was to be the kingdom of priests and holy na- 
tion, chosen for that purpose among the sister-nations, "the world 
belonging to God" and all mankind being God's worshippers. 
This idea, Israel's priesthood, revealed to JMoses at Horeb, was 
both, the final end of, and the prelude to, the Ten Commandments. 
It could not at once be carried out. Hence the creation of the 
tribe-of the Levites and Ahronides (Kohanin). The priest-people 
had to be educated, first, to that role. It took a thousand years ; 
Ezra made earnest with it. Two centuries later, the idea clearly 
and-sal4ently stood before the minds of the rabbis; Israel is the 
priesthood, not alone the Ahronides, and mankind is to be edu- 
cated- as the congregation of the one universal God . . . With the 
destruction of the II. Temple, the sacrificial service was dropped 
out- -of sight. Prayer, charity, and even more so, study and in- 
struction became the great task of the Jew, as the priestly teacher 
anxi holy Ethnos of mankind. And this very part of the priest of 
mankind, Israel has been performing since Horeb . . . Hence comes 
his" exceptional position among the nations, literally realizing : 
''When you will listen unto My voice and keep My covenant, you 
shall be unto Me a precious property, among the nations, Mine 
being all the earth." He is to form the vanguard of the human 
race, the stimulus to mentality and purity. This is the extraordi- 
nary, providential part and position of Israel in history. 

WHEREFORE ISRAEL? PRE- AND POST-SINAI. 

Thus when people ask : Why is he so long a minority? Subject 
to so many, tribulations and misconstructions ? Is he better, supe- 
rior to others ? of blue blood ? Had not Egypt, India, China an 
older civilization ? The answer is : Yes, they had a civilization, 



WHEREFORE ISRAEL? PRE- AND POST-SINAI. 93 

but not a high one ; they had not ''a kingdom of priests and holy 
nation." They had a nation, a country, kings, priests, warriors, 
craftsmen, a state, famiHes; but their nation was a forced con- 
glomeration of subjugated tribes; their country, conquered vil- 
lages and provinces ; their king, a despot owning all, their priests 
were his tools and clerks ; their warriors, his hirelings and condot- 
tcri; the State was the property of king and warriors ; the family 
was owned by the master, and the mass of the people was a herd 
of slaves, to furnish taxes and soldiers for the wars and whims of 
the king and his grandees. As to their religion, it was mostly the 
cunning contrivance of hypocrisy, to give a legal handle to 
tyranny, and their civilization was an artificial scheme for cover- 
ing up the wretchedness of the majority, by the splendors of the 
minority and the exorbitant luxuriousness of the court, all owned 
by the divinized despot. 

Our present chapter, wath the creation of a spiritual ele- 
ment, a "holy nation," inaugurates a State with freedom, right 
and justice, a people of freeborn ones, spontaneously asso- 
ciated, all aspiring at mental and moral culture; no kings but 
God and Law ; no war, but for defense ; with workers free and 
moral, with families by marriage, without enslaved women 
and unfree children, with mutual sympathies and duties ; the 
social basis was the worship of the One God of the universe ; 
the Church represented right, wisdom, education and purity; 
the friend of the people, not the handle of the king; with 
priests as ministers and teachers of the community, not feed- 
ing it with mythology and ignorance, not claiming infalli- 
bility, tithes and the land, over and above ; the king and the 
priests not masters, but magistrates ; the people, the family 
and the young generation, as the objects of the State, the 
Sanctifying God-belief as the top of the social pyramid, the 
State and the people represented the Temple with its worshippers 
of the universal God. 

This is the Mosaic scheme. This is the difference of the 
civilizations of the pre-Sinaic and the post-Sinaic period; of that 
of Assyria, Phoenicia or Egypt, and that of Judaea. The pre- 
Sinaic one was based on country, force and nationalism, vio- 
lence and cunning, for the advantage of the few; without 
VF" spirit and soul or any nobler scope but selfishness and pleas- 



94 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

ure. Even so was their religion : Gods, priests and leaders 
aimed but at power and sensuality.^ 

Such were their gods, Zeus, Belus, Merodach, Assur. The 
Biblical scheme, "A kingdom of priests and holy nation," in- 
troduces new factors into human society; freedom, reason, 
right, holiness. God as pure spirituality, the Ten Words as 
man's organic Law ; the Sabbath as the vehicle of rest, freedom 
and culture ; the parental and filial relations sanctified ; virtue, 
justice, duty, truth to rule, not over-reaching and force; mar- 
riage and purity with social solidarity, not exploitation. In 
Egypt the priest alone was educated, while the Hebraic priest, 
Kohen, was to improve and teach all men and women. Ruling 
was not king, or class, or priestly caste, over pariah people, 
but a democracy, with God and law supreme. This is pro- 
pounded in the present scheme of the period of Horeb and 
the kingdom of priests. If they ask: Wherefore Israel? The 
answer is : He stands for the moral element, he is to intro- 
duce those new ideas into the polity of the State and Church. 
Why is he ever a minority? Because only the best compre- 
hend the import of his mission. Because human progress 
is exceedingly slow, the masses are moving but hesitatingly. 

THE CORONATION FORMULA. 

"Ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests" is the corona- 
tion formula conferring the crown of thorns and the pallium 
of nobility. It is the solemn investiture of the Sinaic people 
with "the insignia of the holy spirit," ever wafting from hoary 
Horeb. All that proud program, all those improvements we 
have above enumerated, as developments from Sinai, are sum- 
marized and resumed in the creation of the "priestly people 
and holy nation." 

"Ye shall be unto Me a kingdom of priests and a holy peo- 
ple," is not simply an ideal, the motto of Israel's installation 
in his historical office ; No ! It also implies the severe duties 
imposed upon him, for : Nobility obliges. The eldest son of 
civilization, knighted now 3,500 years ago, bearing the rugged 
Messiah mantel and the crown of thorns, that imposes great 



1 Homer Odysseius. I, 25: Antioon tauron te kai arneion ekatombas. 
I, 60; Ou ny t' Odysseus Argeion para neyssi charizeto iera regon. 
I, 66: Peri d' ira theoisin athanatoisin edoke. .. 



THE CORONATION FORMULA. 95 

and heavy responsibilities. The history of these thirty-five cen- 
turies and especially of the last fifteen centuries, has suffi- 
ciently proven what cruel sacrifices that people had to bring" 
for its mission. A few drops of water in the Occident, the 
donning of the turban in the Orient, a few grains of barley 
strewn before a marble statue in ancient times, would have 
relieved the Jew of all such hard burdens. But he remembered 
that at Horeb his ancestors had shouted : ''Whatever the 
Eternal has bidden, we shall perform," and he did perform it. 

Thus when the people wonder: Why continue a minority? 
Wily extra Sabbaths and holidays? Wherefore a special race 
and church? Why continue a small minority with such cruel 
sacrifices? Why circumcision, racial marriage and an oriental 
tongue Why that austere Jewish life and practice, dietary 
and hygienic purity and extra sexual discipline? Why must 
the Jewish youth be more frugal, reserved, studious, reverential^ 
industrious? Why the Jewish maiden more womanly, domestic^ 
pious, refined, industrious and retired ? The answer is : Because ye 
are Jews, because ye have been consecrated as "a kingdom 
of priests and a holy nation," because nobility obliges, because 
a minority, as a model people, must uphold higher ideals of 
human goodness, mentality, purity, wisdom. But is that not 
a crown of thorns? Shall we yield and throw off that cum- 
bersome Messiah mantel? Is that not martyrdom for vanity's 
sake, Grocssenzi'ahiif imaginar}^ self-apotheosis? Why not give 
way and go with the majority? The answer is: If you have 
accepted the premises, you must abide by the conclusion. If 
you have assumed the advantages, you must consent to the 
burdens. With your patriarchal blood you have assumed the 
first, with Mosaism, the latter ones. If the civilization of 
Egypt, Greece, Assyria was by far not the highest, if our present 
one, built upon Sinaic models, with chastity, education, spir- 
ituality and freedom for all, is the higher civilization, then 
Israel was and is indispensably necessary. He was and is the 
providential means to bring that about. He must continue to 
exert his efforts and accomplish it. Hence he must not shirk 
his burden, not shrink from setting a noble example of self- 
sacrifice for his platform. At any price afid cost he must set 
the example of sacrifice, austerity. To give up, stop half- 
way and yield to materialism, to the civilization of force and 



96 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

pleasure, is tantamount to betrayal of his providential mission 
as priest-people, and that would be not only treachery to man- 
kind, but also moral suicide. Hence we cannot give up, but 
''Whatever God* has bidden, we shall perform." Whosoever 
shirks his providential task loses his right to be. We are the 
heirs of history, of our fathers ; their rights and duties passed 
over to us. We are identified with our ancestors by blood, 
spirit and idiosyncrasy. We are the late generation of Horeb 
living thirty-five centuries after Horeb. Their duty is ours 
and their mission is ours. We have inherited their racial 
and psychical features, as also their providential task.- We 
cannot repudiate them. Behold, scarcely half a century has 
elapsed since Israel's reluctant emancipation, yet how imposing 
he stands in all the honorable avenues of human exhibit, in 
State and Church, science, art, literature, industry. Our ene- 
mies complain of him as a v/ould-be aristocracy ! Yes, but we 
are not an aristocracy of the sword, conquest, privilege, ex- 
ploiting club-law, powder and lead ! No. We are one of 
brain, spirituality, work, culture and idealism ; we are one of 
educating, liberating and elevating the masses; we are every- 
where the liberals, the democrats, the enfranchisers. That 
lofty, proud ideal held up to us at Mt. Horeb, to be "a king- 
dom of priests and holy nation," we hold that -up to all man- 
kind, we teach them the same one God and same Ten Words ; 
the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man, the equality 
before the Law; no war of creed, races, peoples and countries; 
no pan-Slavism, pan-Latinism, pan-Germanism, but pan- 
humanity; not Jew against Gentile, Occident against Orient, 
but ''Peace! peace to those far-oit and those near by." Repre- 
senting those principles, sacrificing and battling for them dur- 
ing these last thirty-five centuries, we cannot give them up. 
Surrender would be betrayal of our providential, humanitarian 
trust and of our own ethnical existence, it would be self- 
elimination, suicide. 

RECAPITULATION AND SUMMARY. 

Let us now suntmarize : "Ye shall be a kingdom of priests 
and holy nation," is the investiture, the consecration formula 
of Israel, the turning point of his entire national history. 
When one asks: What is the task of that people? What 
makes out its right to be? What is the secret of its endur- 



RECAPITULATION AND SUMMARY. 97 

ance? When the Gentile world wonders at the phenomenon of 
Judah's existence, then answer : We have been consecrated to 
the universal priesthood, to administer to man's spiritual needs, 
to the One-God belief and the one religion of civilized man ; our 
task is man's higher domain, tlie culture of the mind, the heart, 
the brain ; thinking, learning and teaching, all resumed in the 
concept of religion, all deep at the base of truly humane, spiritual 
life. 

That consecration formula : *'Be ye a kingdom of priests" 
expresses clearly and distinctly Israel's mission ; that solves the 
wondrous riddle of his, else, enigmatic history. Why had he 
outlived all antique, powerful nations? Because his basis is 
Spirit, mind, immortal interests ! Why has he remained numer- 
ically so weak? Because the mass of the people never rallies 
around spirit-concerns, because spirit is not tangible enough for 
it, because a minority only comprehends such ideas. Devoted to 
such affairs of the mind, Israel can never die, as mind never dies. 
As such he w^ill ever conquer and forever remain a minority, as 
the intelligent and the good always are, as the divine spirit ever 
moves in the minority I^ 

That consecration formula is Juda's patent of nobility, it is 
the noblest blazon ever a people exhibited. The aristocracy of 
blood and of conquest is questionable, but the nobility of 
mind will ever stay. That consecration carries with itself the 
heaviest responsibility ever imposed upon a race of man. So 
avers the well known adage : ''Nobility obliges," rights impose 
duties. Appertaining to the oldest historic stock, the eldest son 
of civilization, distinguished and illustrious by untold misfortunes 
and undying glories, you must dearly pay the important honor 
of being Jews. Sure, a surrender of principle would gain 
for you all worldly advantages, but nobility obliges ! Your 
historical position, your honor, your claims on mankind would 

be lost. But is that not over-estimation? No, it is Consci- 
ence ! Why make greater sacrifices for duty, religion, educa- 
tion, for extra Sabbaths and holidays? Why continue a mi- 
nority, bear insolence, ostracism? Answer: Because we are 
Jews and nobility obliges. Since Sinai, 3,500 years ago our 
gens has been set apart as a priest-people, as a model to the 
nations; this is Israel's right to he, and to this he clings and 



1 Matthew Arnold. His lecture on the Remnants and the Minorities. 



98 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE 

adheres. Why are your habits and your diet to be more 
choicy, more in accordance to the best principles of hygiene, 
physiology and psychology? Answer: Because we are Jews; 
we are to be healthy in body and in soul; health, cleanliness, 
public and private hygiene are prescribed to us as part of 
religion, for only healthy souls in healthy bodies make up a 
"holy nation." Cleanliness in body is preparing for holiness in 
soul, both make out the true priesthood. Do you aim by that at 
dominion, at aristocracy? No, we set thereby merely an ex- 
amiple of a higher, private and public hygiene, of purity in 
diet, frugality, chastity in habits, showing to the people how to 
realize sound souls in sound bodies, how to bring about a 
nobler type, with more health and more spirit, and gradually 
make all humanity a "kingdom of priests and a holy nation." 
If we aspire at an aristocracy, it is one to embrace all mankind, 
an uplifting of all races, an improvemiCnt of all classes, the 
sanctification of all human beings, the masses. 

When you are asked : Why must your women be more do- 
mestic, retired, plain and frugal, less ostentatious in manners and 
speech, dress and ornamentation, more choicy in their company, 
more modest and more reserved, less brilliant and more solid, 
more handy, hearty, brainy ? To this answer : Because we are 
Jews, instituted as the priestly people, the pattern nation for man- 
kind. Answer that question by a counter-question, appealing 
to facts, to well known history : Why has the old-time Jewish 
woman ever maintained such a high standing in history? Be- 
cause of her good sense, her modesty, her virtue, her simplicity, 
her industry, her self-sacrificing devotedness to her husband, fam- 
ily and people. And why was to her conceded such excellence, to 
be the pattern of womanhood, at a time when her race and religion 
were generally despised and hooted by the silken and by the cotton 
mob?. . .This was just the outcome of the "kingdom of priests." 
This, too, is the example set by Israel's women : Mankind and 
womankind have wisely and greatly profited by that example. The 
present Gentile marriage, family, womanly dignity, position and 
refined social relations are according to the pattern of the Biblical 
Eve, not the Greek Pandora. Compare the status of the present 
Christian woman with that of her ancestor in the times of Rome, 
Greece, Persia, Scandinavia, India ? Has not the Biblical example 
powerfully contributed to the elevation of all womanhood? 



RECAPITULATION AND SUMMARY. 99 

Man and woman at large have improved their status, since the 
last two thousand years — and this, thanks to the pattern set by 
the "priestly people and holy nation," brought over to them by 
Judeo-Christian missionaries and apostles. 

To all such queries and many more such historical questions and 
puzzles, answer : Because we are Jews, nobility obliges ! Because 
thousands of years ago the Eternal God told our fathers : "Ye 
shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and holy nation." Ye 
shall devote, not to pleasure, power, wealth or military glory, but 
to the spiritual domain, educating, thinking, working, improving, 
setting the example of higher development, of a more perfect 
man and woman. 

And your fathers accepted that mission, narrates our text. 
They answered : "Whatever the Eternal has ordained, we shall 
perform." And they have performed that; indeed, amidst har- 
rowing obstacles and cruel persecutions. And history shows that 
you are the heirs to your sires ; that upon you has descended 
their task, their rights, their duties ; you are to continue and real- 
ize their promise given at Sinai. The heavy burden of an illus- 
trious mission, as a priestly people, a nation of mind, rests upon 
your shoulders and you must adhere to it. You must bear your 
crown, however heavy and thorny; you are wedded to it in eter- 
nal marriage ; you cannot unmake history. Every one must ful- 
fill his task or perish. Therefore, what you must do, do it with a 
good grace, do it cheerfully. Act in a way that you should be 
worthy of your motto, a motto which, when raised to a universal 
rule, would realize the highest human civilization. Act in a way 
as not to be misunderstood. In your assent and your dissent, in 
your unity with or isolation from fellow-mankind, see to it that 
you be not misinterpreted, that they see and cheerfully recognize 
that your partial dissent is not dictated by fanaticism and bigotry, 
not by vain-glory and race pride, but by your mature convic- 
tions, by your sincerely believing it to be your providential 
Sinaic mission, by the desire to set up a nobler example for 
human endeavors, imposed upon you by your 4,000 years history 
and doctrines.^ During our 2,500 years' diaspora, our sages 
may have enacted a great many observances and ceremonies, in 
our habits, dress, dwelling, diet, manners, social intercourse, wor- 
ship and education, aiming, decidedly and solely at differentiat- 

1 Beginning with Abraham. 



100- EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECAeOGUE. 

ing and dissimilating Jew from Gentile, at building up Chinese 
walls around every single Israelite, at rendering each a nucleus 
and germ for future Judaism. The harsh, barbarous surround- 
ings induced them to such measures. God thanks, times are 
better. Chinese walls we need not any longer. In this we differ 
from the past centuries. We are no zealots and no bigots. 
Wherever we differ, we aim simply at setting up a rule and 
model of pure, healthy, bodily and intellectual life, good for all 
civilized men. 

GENESIS OF THE DECALOGUE. 
(EXODUS 19-20, THEME.) 

What is the import of the Ten Commandments of Sinai ? Why 
have they so wonderfully spread and become the patrimony of 
mankind? Why have the three hundred millions of Christians, 
the four hundred millions of Mohammedans, the hundreds of 
miUions of Hindoos and Buddhists and Chinese, indeed, all the 
peoples, more or less civilized, recognized the Decalogue as of 
paramount importance to any human society? Yea, as the very 
backbone and organic law of civilization? Let us look to it 
closely and intently, and see what it purports and teaches , under 
what circumstances and for what aim and purpose it was pro- 
mulgated. Let us examine : First, Its genesis, the circumstances 
under which it was revealed ; Second, Its doctrines and teachings, 
metaphysical, moral, social, civil ; Third, Its practical workings 
in history, if and how it was realized in the development of 
Israel, and next, in the development of mankind ; its bearing 
upon the Judaean people, originally and specially intended for, 
and next, upon the human race, as its climax and great final 
object; has it brought about the ''kingdom of priests and holy 
nation?" How far has it succeeded in the first, and how far 
in the latter one? We shall begin now with examining the 
genesis of the Decalogue. 

A horde of enslaved Shemitic nomads and laborers, led by the 
first of the Hebraic prophets, the greatest legislative genius of 
antiquity, about 3,500 years ago,i left under the most arduous 
difficulties, the country of their bondage, the then most advanced 



1 Between 1650 to 1300 before the Christian aera. 



GENESIS OF THE DECALOGUE. loi 

and powerful Egypt, Mizraim, on the borders of the Nile, on 
the confines of Asia and Africa. That horde of Shemitic laborers 
was to be made a nation, a civilized and religious people, to 
throw off any remnants of foreign idolatry, to become law- 
abiding, settled in permanent dwellings and lands in Khanaan, the 
pasture grounds of their sires, the patriarchs. The mass of the 
people was to devote to agriculture, to become peaceful and do- 
mestic, to cattle raising, to settled civic occupations and habits; 
whilst its scant classes were to devote to ethical pursuits ; all were 
to give up their former Arabian, roving dispositions, with a grand 
object in view, viz : that of becoming a monotheistic, spiritual, 
peace and right-representing people, "a kingdom of priests and 
holy nation," a pattern for the surrounding war-split nations, a 
teacher of those doctrines about to receive at Horeb. The sur- 
rounding nations, Khanaanites, Phoenicians, etc., then possessed a 
high civilization, industrial, commercial, maritime. But they 
were exceedingly sensuous, coarsely material, meanly idolatrous, 
superstitious and polytheistic; with base licentiousness, impure 
worship, human sacrifices and priestcraft; catering to the very 
lowest instincts of human nature and- mostly neglecting its higher 
aspirations and needs, the very opposite to the contemplated 
"kingdom of priests and holy nation." 

ARABIA AND SINAI. 

That nascent people needed before everything laws, laws based 
upon rational, moral, authoritative, divine, self-evident princi- 
ples. It needed laws, moralization, orderliness, the idea of 
property, justice and sympathy, the feeling of nationality, patriot- 
ism, reciprocity, solidarity, to supplant the nomadic, semi-barbar- 
ous instincts of force, cunning and selfishness, to change it into 
a truly civilized, spiritualized nation, a "kingdom of priests." 
The horde was therefore led, at once after its issue and liberation 
from Egypt, into grand Arabia, the consecrated country of lib- 
erty, wherein never yet despotism succeeded permanently to 
establish its domain, where since the old Pharaohs to the present 

Othmanli, the chains of slavery never could be permanently 
forged and riveted, where man ever was privileged to assume and 
hold his native rights and independence. 



102 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

The enfranchised Hebrew people were led into that vast and 
majestic Arabian desert, to the then already well-known and 
venerable Mount Horeb, on one of the summits of the peninsula 
and wilderness of Sinai. The Arabian peninsula is almost a 
continent by itself. Its surface is about as vast as half of the 
United States country, an almost uninterrupted solitude, inter- 
spersed with but rare, small veins of green, watered and cultured 
spots, oases, where some Bedouin sheikhs with their herds take 
up their temporary abode. Except such green spots, there 
stretch but uninterrupted solitudes of dust and sand, in solemn 
monotony. The Sinai region is a ridge of mounts, one on top 
of the other. Of the prominent points, especially, the Horeb, 
presents one of the grandest sights of earth; from the summit 
you may discern and hear the roar, and see at its base roll the 
waves of the great lakes and seas of the then known world; the 
Mediterranean, the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf and the Indian 
Ocean ; looking down from whose heights you find displayed the 
various countries of Asia, Europe and Africa, with the Sinai- 
Horeb as the center, the throne of the Deity. The entire region 
abounds in hills, mounts and peaks, varying with picturesque 
dales and valleys, with abrupt clefts, ravines and precipices, nar- 
row and frightful ; straight, steep, rocky walls and deep abysses. 
Such sudden, multiform configurations of the soil naturally 
produce in quick succession, various and wonderful echoes and 
re-echoes, produced and reproduced and reverberated to great 
distances and in various sounds in that frequent alternation of 
mount, rock, dale and precipice, rendering back the voices sent 
up and down, to and from the numerous neighboring heights, 
thrown back by the rocks and reechoing in the precipices below. 

It is claimed tliat a strong shrill shout coming from some of 
those hills, will be re-echoed and repeated over and over, even as 
much as twenty-six times, and hence that myriads of people be- 
low could hear simultaneously a voice sent down from Horeb or 
any of the neighboring heights.^ 

In the I and II Decalogue (II M. 20 and V M. 5), this peculiar 
trait, the ''voices," or echoes, is emphasized as 'Voice," "voices," 
and once even as "a great voice that never ceased. "^ The voices 



iSee on these echoes, Edwin Robinson: Description of Sinai. The 
villa Simmonetta, near Milan, presents, too, such frequent echoes, 24 
to 56 in number. 

-^u vh^ bn: bip .ni^ip ,bip ' 



HOREB AND ITS IMPRESSIONS. 103 

there, repeated so many times, may allude to these numerous 
echoes of the Horeb region. Exodus Rabba, Jethro, allude also 
to these multiple reverberations from the Sinai and Horeb ridges. 

This is the grand scene of the organic law to be delivered, and 
the impressions upon the people could but correspond to the 
great occasion and the marvelous scenery. Here the people of 
the Exodus is described as witnessing the solemn and divine act 
of revelation, memorable for all times ; under the most strange, 
awful, and tremendous phenomena of that gigantic nature ever 
exhibited in those tropic latitudes ; the dark clouds hiding the 
mount, as in a nebulae, emitting thunder and flashes of light; 
volcanoes breaking out and scattering their lurid flames and 
lava streams, with clouds of smoke; the lightning rending and 
wonderfully illumining the atmosphere in all directions; the 
crush and roar of tropic thunderstorms, pealing to the dome of 
heaven and miajestically reverberating in the numerous dales, 
rocks and hollows of the mountainous and craggy Sinaic penin- 
sula. 

All that re-echoes in the hearts of the myriads of people 
standing at the foot of Horeb, the divine mount. They stand 
around in holy trembling and awe, awaiting their own salvation 
and that of their children, for long generations to be born, from 
that eventful hour. The deep waters of the Red Sea recoil in awe. 
The vast solitudes of Arabia, the Sahara, and Lybia suspend 
their monotony. The imposing cataracts at the sources of the 
Nile interrupt their dashing and roaring falls. The busy, great, 
western nations and the innumerable tribes of Africa, Arabia 
and Aetheopia forget for a moment their eternal warfares. They 
all gaze at the spectacle on Horeb. Nature is in high excitement. 
Nature travails. She begets the nation of mind. Israel is com- 
ing into the world. The skies are rent asunder, the heavenly 
hosts stand m majestic array. They shout in eternal chorus; 
Holy ! holy ! holy ! is Ihvh-Zebaoth,^ the Lord of the heavenly 
hosts. And down from on high alights the Shekhina., The 
veiled majesty of the invisible Supreme descends on the summit 
of high Horeb. There stands waiting, rapt in deep meditation, 
the grand prophet, Moshe. He waits in silence for the inspira- 



iThat the Hebraic Zebaoth's etymology is akin to the Greek Zeos 
and Zevs is not decided. 



104 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

DECALOGUE TEXT AND SENSE. 
I— V. COMMANDMENT. 

tion of the Universal Spirit. Kneel down, O ye nations of earth, 
veil your faces and fall prostrate, ye mortals. Lo ! Mind is mar- 
rying matter, God is in communion with man. 

''I am Ihvh, thy God, who has brought thee out of the land of 
Egypt, the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods 
in My presence" (II M., xx, 2-3). 

Anochi, I am: God is one. There are not two gods, as claimed 
by the doctrine of Zoroaster; not three gods, as the triads and 
trinities of Brahmanism, Egyptology, Christianity, etc. ; not four 
gods, the so-called four elements; not the all-substance of ancient 
philosophers, Chaos ; not the many gods or forces of nature ; not 
the gods of mythology, Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Assyrian, Baby- 
lonian ; not dualism, trinitarianism, polytheism, pantheism, or 
atheism. 

Anochi, I am, God is the Absolute Existence, the Being, alone 
absolutely, eternally and necessarily existing. All other beings 
are accidental, creatures voluntarily called forth by His free 
divine volition. He alone is, absolutely and necessarily and 
from all eternity, existing. All other beings are and could not be, 
they are and may soon alter, change and disappear. He alone is, 
was and will be ; necessarily be, without change, and in all eternity. 

Anochi, I am, God is, He is the Being, the Essence, the Life, 
the First and Supreme Cause, the Cause of all causes, the Origin, 
Creator, and Providence of the universe. 

Anochi, I am, God is the reality of all beings existing. Every- 
thing else is but temporal, changeable, ephemeral ; God alone is 
immutable and everlasting. He is Supreme Consciousness, In- 
telligence, volition, power, goodness, all-holiness ; He is con- 
sciousness personified and extra mundane. He is not a physical 
person, not embodied and incarnated, not with human passions, 
attributes and needs. No ! He is Mind, Spirit, in contradistinc- 
tion to matter; He is the soul and life of the universe, to be dis- 
tinguished from matter, the existing bodies, the endless physical 
creatures of the universe. He is its Creator and Conservator, the 
Soul of all existence. 1 Nature is His creature, the universe is His 



iGabirol calls him in Keser-Malchuth: The Soul of the universal souL 



DECALOGUE TEXT AND SENSE. 105 

revelation, His manifestation, His only embodiment, His living 
robe and pallium. ^ He is its ever active principle, first cause, 
energy, All-Power, its support, lever, and innermost sap. The 
universe rests in His Creative bosom, His thought is creation.^ 

Anochi, He is not limited by the totality of existing bodies; 
matter is His free creation, not His part and not necessarily cre- 
ated. Such is the Mosaic conception of God, Ihvh, the Being, 
the only One. It rejects materialism, pantheism, Spinozism, Par- 
seeism, Hegelianism. God is the free Creator, Soul, and conscious 
Providence of nature. 

This God-conception may be challenged by the philosopher; 
that He is personal and free, that the universe is His free creation ; 
that the creatures are not the products of iron necessity; that 
they could be, or not be, or otherwise be; that God can change 
them at will, etc., this is not scientific, but it is Mosaic, Biblic, and 
fits best the exalted God-belief underlying our society. Here is 
practical good sense superior to the abstract reasonings of Plato 
and Aristotle, Spinoza, Schopenhauer, or Herbert Spencer. 

Anochi, Ihvh, I am Ihvh, the Being, I am He who ever is, in 
the past, the present, and future, ever and everywhere, omnis- 
cient, omnipresent, and eternal, pervading endless time and bound- 
less space ; He alone is uncreated, uncomposed of attributes, atoms 
or elements, a strict, rigorous, Unique, Supreme, One God, Mono- 
theos, Ihvh, A chad. 

Blohacha, God alone is Elohim, he resumes and centers in his 
own unique Being all the powers and attributes of the ancient 
polytheistic gods ; he is the sum of all the forces of nature, he 
vivifies and upholds all ; as the sun-heat energizes the vegetation. 
There are no other gods, Elohim, besides him, he is the only One. 
The once popular gods and genii were fictions or scattered 
divine attributes, or the agents and forces of nature. He the only 
One God, resumes them all in his own indivisible supreme 
Being. 

Blohacha, that Only One God of the universe, is the God of 
Israel; no polytheism, no local, tribal, ancestral, or national 
gods. The God of Israel, of Zion is the God of mankind and 
of the universe, all. 

"Who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, the house of 
bondage," viz. : The God of all mankind and of all countries is 

iDer Gottheit lebendiges Kleid. Goethe. 
2Vedanta, Artistotle, Maimonides. 



io6 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

the God of freedom and justice for all. He did not make some 
the masters and others the slaves. He is a God of universal 
freedom, justice and equity. He breaks the chains of serfs and 
the scepters of would-be masters. He created and patented none 
to rule and none to slave. 

"Thou shalt have no other gods in my presence" (Besides 
Me), because there are none whatever. The heathen gods, 
national, tribal and local, are fictions, or divinized parents, or 
apotheosized heroes, or poeticized natural forces. They are no 
gods, their substance is ever absorbed by the only one God. 

**Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image or figure 
(emblematic of divinity). Thou shalt not bow down to and 
worship them." God, being spirit, can never be adequately 
represented by any material emblem. Being the essence of all, 
he cannot be symbolized by a part, statue, picture, mount, sun 
or star; being eternal, he can not be represented by anything 
finite. In order to avoid misunderstanding, all idol-worship 
must be discarded. God is infinite Mind and may be grasped, 
though never fully comprehended, only by man's mind, a ray 
from the divine mind, never by the senses of men. 

*'Thou shalt not bear (or utter) the name of God in vain." 
God, the Supreme Cause, the Essence, the life of all existence 
is man's most exalted and holy conception. Therefore, no 
profanation, no frivolity, no levity in presence of Him. The 
God-idea is the talisman and palladium of the highest in man. 
The divine name frivolously used and profaned, the man-idea, 
manhood is wrecked and brutalized. Having thus established 
a firm base for the universe and for its conscious citizen, man, 
the Decalogue proceeds to establish and elucidate the prin- 
ciples of the individual, the family, the State, and society. 

"Remember the Sabbath day to sanctify it. During six days 
thou shalt work and the seventh day is a rest, consecrated to 
thy God ; neither thou nor thy son and daughter, nor thy ser- 
vant nor thy cattle, nor the stranger in thy precincts, shall 
work on it." During six days man shall work, the seventh 
day is for rest and sanctification ; to pause and recreate the 
body, to refresh and energize the mind ; it is consecrated to 
mental, moral, spiritual culture; the patrimony of the better 
half of human needs; to reconquer one's noble birth right, 
man's rehabilitation and restoration. The Rest-day paves the 
way to the higher human aspirations. 



DECALOGUE TEXT AND SENSE. 107 

"Honor thy father and thy mother that thou mayest live 
long." Honor and cherish thy parents, who represent to you, 
O young ones, God on earth. You owe to them your being, 
your education, support, name, start in life, and future. They 
have cared and toiled, loved and cheered you, lived and sacri- 
ficed for you. You are their bodily immortality, their hope 
and joy. Honor and cherish them as you do God on high. 
Without filial piety the family fades and withers, and without 
it decay State and society also. Family piety was for thou- 
sands of years a notable trait in the Jewish household, mutual 
tenderness of its members, self-sacrifice of the parents, obedi- 
ence and reverence of the children. May that feature never be 
lost to the human race. 

SIXTH TO TENTH COMMANDMENTS. 

"Thou shalt not m^urder. Thou shalt not commit inchas- 
tity." "Thou shalt not steal." Respect the life, the purity and 
the property of thy fellow-man. Let their life, honor and 
well-being be sacred unto thee; spare the dignity and char- 
acter of womanhood, the labor and the produce of thy fellow- 
workers. These make up the first elements and the basis of 
a community, the possibility of society. Without these the 
State is a gathering of wolves and bears. The sacredness of 
human life, chastity, property and justice is a paramount re- 
quisite of human happiness. 

Do not commit murder, lewdness, theft and robbery, they 
are universal, absolute categories and prohibitions, not limited 
to country, race or sect. Spare, by all means, human life, 
honor and ownership, of friend or foe, fellow-citizen or for- 
eigner. Here is the noble universalism of the Decalogue stand- 
ing alone in all antiquity. Everywhere else the murder of 
an enemy, even treacherously done, was lawful, yea, encour- 
aged as glorious. The Teuton, the Spartan, the Scitian and Mon- 
golian, inaugurated his manhood by murder and robbery, a 
citizen must be a manslayer. The same was theft, deceit and 
robbery, honorable when committed upon a stranger; toil and 
saving were ever despised. Barbarian, Greek, German, Persian, 
Roman, all, thought them beneath their dignity. War and depre- 
dation, spoils were alone accounted worthy of a man. The slave 
worked and saved, while the freeman idled, warred, pillaged 
and wasted. That was the polity of the military regime. 



io8 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

Even so chastity was no universal duty. Many peoples took 
unchastity, lubricity into the very service of the gods. Wo- 
man was a slave, ever she w^as to be and remain somebody's 
belonging. She, personally, had no rights and no dignity, and 
was to yield to some master. Such was the model Pandora. 
Mosaism alone declared her a citizen, with rights, often even 
over and above those of men. When sold as a child, by a poor 
father, she w^as to be wedded by her master, or his son, or go 
out free^, as soon as coming of age. Mosaism prohibited free 
love as impure and heathen and bid marriage as civilized man's 
natural condition. 

The rabbis declare the conjugal union as the very first 
scriptural Commandment (I M., i., 28). The ancient world 
ever oscillated between the extremes. They indulged in either ; 
first lubricity, then monachal abstinence ; whilst both are 
unnatural, both destructive of society. Chastity, monogamy 
are the safeguard of the body and of the soul, of the individual, 
the family and the state. Otherwise the gangrene will seize 
upon and destroy either and all. Civilized mankind has 
adopted Mosaic matrimony (I. M., ii. 24), with the entire 
Decalogue, not the oriental free love and monasticism. The 
noblest ideal of our present wedlock, of conjugal love and of 
filial piety, the model, modern family is Biblical ; not Pan- 
dora, but Eve, or Sara, or Hannah is the pattern vvife. 

The Mosaic woman and marriage is characterized in Eve's 
story (Gen. II., 24). "Therefore shall man leave his father 
and his mother and cling to his wife and form one person." 
Contrast with this the very pattern of ancient Greek ideality, 
Ulysses' wife, Penelopeia, the Hellenic conception of woman- 
hood, her position and her moral vv'orth. (Homer Odysseias-) : 



iSee on that, Biblical Legislation, page 13. 

20dysseias, Homer. 

I, 330: Klimaka d' upselen katebeseto oio domoio, — ouk oie, ama 
tege kai amphipoloi du' eponto. e d' ote de mnesteras afiketo dia gunai- 
kon, ste ra para stathmon. . .anta pareiaon schomene lipasa kredemna. 

I, 341: Ete moi aiei eni stethessi filon ker teirei. 

I, 356: Air eis oikon iousa ta s' antes erga komize, — iston t' elakaten 
te, kai amfipoloisi keleue — ergon epoichesthai. — muthos d' andressi mel- 
esei pasi, malista d'emoi. ton gar kratos est' eni oiko...H' men 
thambesasa palin oikonde bebekei. . . 

n, 87: Soi d' outi mnesteres Achaion aitioi eisin, alia file meter, 
e toi peri kerdea oiden. Ede gar triton estin etos...ex ou atembei 
thumon eni stethessin Achaion. pantas men r' elpei, kai upischetai 
andri ekasto, aggelias proietsa. noos de oi alia menoina. 

II, 222. "Sema te oi cheuo kai epi kterea ktereixo polla mal', ossa 
eoike, kai aneri metera doso." 



SIXTH TO TENTH COMMANDMENTS. 109 

Ulysses not returning home, after a long absence, his wife, 
Penelopeia, is besieged by a crowd of impudent suitors, her 
substance daily being eaten up by them, in order to compel 
her to choose one of them as her spouse She is alluded to by 
them as insincere, and double-tongued, tempting them and 
keeping them in suspense, at once mourning for Ulysses and 
preparing for a future husband, claiming that she tarried to 
remarry only until she had finished weaving a pallium for her 
old father-in-law, Laertes, but really temporizing to make the 
best of the opportunity, waiting for her old husband and keep- 
ing in suspense eventual reserve-suitors. Even her son, 
scarcely beyond boyhood, presumes to chide and scold her, 
give her orders, claims the right of giving her away to a new 
husband ! Now, remember that Ulysses, Penelopeia and Tele- 
machus belong to the most exalted personages of the Greek 
heroic age and history. Nevertheless, how low is here the 
standard of womanhood and of wedlock ! She is ever owned 
by somebody, by her father, her husband or her son; and her 
sincerity is ever doubted. She is but another Pandora, a 
charming witch; not Eve, the helpmeet and worthy consort of 
man. 

"Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy fellow-man." 
Do not belie in public court or in private. Do not deny or 
affirm against thy conviction. Let truth, sincerity and fair- 
ness prevail in all thy dealings. To be a man is to keep one's 
word. Without his word, a man is but a thing. That prohi- 
bition implies all manner of lying. It is not limited to creed, 
country and race. Leviticus, XIX, enlarges upon this : ''Ye 
shall not deny to, or belie one another, not do violence, not 
slander, not secretly hate anybody, but ever be outspoken and 
sincere" : 'Xove thy neighbor as thyself." 

"Do not covet thy neighbor's house, or his wife or anything 
his." Permit no craving to take hold of thee for things not 
thine. Chasten thy passions, bridle thy desires and thoughts, 
never long for objects out of thy reach, so that thy hands may 
remain pure and clean from wrong-doing, for the desire is 
ever father to the deed. The wrong feeling is the root and 
germ; the bad thought, the flower, and the deed is the fruit. 
The state can punish only bad deeds. Society needs purity 
of will as well as of hands ; so God forbids not only evil deeds, 
but even evil thoughts. 



no EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

Why is there so much heart-burning and disappointment, 
jealousy and invidiousness, dishonor and failure, poorhouses, 
prisons and lunatic asylums? Because "Thou shalt not covet" 
was not heeded. Here is a fine husband; a pretty, rich heiress, 
a sparkling necklace, a good position ! Impure cravings lead 
to criminal actions. Bev^are ! Stem the evil just at the start; 
that is the easiest. 

This second half of the Decalogue is, from an ethical stand- 
point, reviewed, enlarged upon and elaborated in Leviticus 
XIX : ''Speak to the entire Congregation of Israel and tell 
them, ye shall be holy, for holy am I, your God." The belief 
that God exists and is holy and perfect, holds up to man an exalted 
pattern of goodness and wisdom. It contributes, as far as 
possible, to man's aspirations at perfection and godlikeness. 
What are the contents of such a godlikeness? Let every per- 
son reverence his mother and his father, and keep my Sabbath, 
(his motive to be) ; I, Ihvh, am your God . Turn not to images 
and idols ; give to the poor part of your annual produce ; do 
not steal, or deny the truth, or tell lies; do not swear frivolously 
by my name ; use no violence ; do not rob, or even withhold the 
timely payment of thy hired man. Do not curse the deaf, or 
put a stumbling-block in the blind man's way, but fear God. 
Commit no wrong when rendering public justice. Spare not 
the poor and respect not the mighty (in judgment), with strict 
justice judge thy fellow-citizen. Do not go tale-bearing 
among thy people, and do not stand by, conspiring against the 
life of thy fellow-man. I am Ihvh (to avenge him). Do not 
bear any secret hate toward thy fellow-men. Expostulate 
openly with him, but bear no secret grudge against him. Be 
not revengeful, but love thy fellow as thyself, "I am Ihvh." 

Carefully examined, Leviticus, XIX, is simply an enlarging 
and ethical expounding of our Ten Words analyzed ; adding as 
motive and stimulus to such acts : I am the Lord, the friend 
of truth and justice, the avenger of innocence. Again, ponder- 
ing over these latter five Commandments, we shall find them 
to be a nucleus of the practical part of prohibitive legislation, 
pointing to the root of all crime : "Thou shalt not murder, not 
be lascivious, not steal, not offer false testimony, not covet 
thy fellow-man's house, his wife or anything his." The fifth 
to the ninth Word enumerate the leading kinds of criminality; 
the tenth and last Word gives the cue to the four preceding 



SIXTH TO TENTH COMMANDMENTS. iir 

ones : Why does one commit murder, lewdness, theft, bear 
false witness? Because he could not control his wayward 
desires, his dangerous broodings, because he hankered for 
things not his. Here, the brooding, the impure heart, the un- 
controlled appetites are shown as the source of the evil, the 
handle to the criminal acts. The State can punish but com- 
mitted deeds, God forbids the motives just as well. As seen : 
wrong desires are the root, the crimes are the fatal off-shoot. 
Criminal deeds are but the condensation of criminal inclina- 
tions. We give them, practically, different names, but they are 
all stealing in disguise. They grow all on one stem, are nur- 
tured by one venomous juice and sap, and that is : uncontrolled 
covetousness. To satisfy it^ one steals the life of his neighbor: 
murder ; one steals his wife or daughter's honor : lewdness ; one 
steals his property : theft ; one steals the neighbor's right and 
truth : false testimony ! one steals, because one craves the other's 
goods. Thus Covetousness is the fatal root, and stealing is 
the baneful fruit. Thus root and fruit give the cue to most of 
crime and misery: The desire of and the attempt at getting 
hold of property not ours. Here is the everlasting Social 
Problem touched upon, economically, ethically and psycho- 
logically, and the entire Mosaic agrarian legislation is its ex- 
pounding. It proves a fine insight in human character, psy- 
chology and practical affairs, retracing all deeds to one motive, 
apparently intangible and innocent enough : Do not covet, for 
wrong Welshes and thoughts lead to wrong deeds ! The Mosaic 
family-acre, the laws against land grabbing, money-grabbing 
or usury, the poor and charity-laws, the Sabbath and holidays, 
etc., all grapple with the Social Problem, greed and stealing.^ 

As to the question: W^hat is property? The Biblical legis- 
lator is ever clear and positive; leaving no room for Proudhon 
and Communism^. According to Moses, property is what you 
create and produce by your work or receive by entail. The 
land is created by God and ever belongs to God alone, and he 
lends it to the nation, to the present and future generations. 
It is fairly to be parceled out in equal, inalienable family acres 
and homesteads and be given to each adult male, by lot, to 
stay with his descendants, from father to son, forever and 
aye. It is never to be alienated or sold away from the family. 



iSee Bible Legislation, 80-165. 

2In his book: Qe 'est ce que la propriete? C'est le vol. 



112 LXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

The temporary possessor is to work it, live on its produce, and 
leave it intact and improved to his own posterity. Land- 
grabbing and wastefulness become thus impossible. As to 
movable wealth, that belonged to him who produced it and 
his heirs. To take such away against his free consent, will 
and knowledge is forbidden, is theft, robbery, over-reaching 
and violence. As to the poor, the Law reserved for them a 
right on part of the annual crops : they can moreover appeal 
for free gifts from those who have.i Thus the Bible admits 
and sanctions property acquired by work and inheritance. 

Cardinal Manning, some years ago, brought out the paradox 
that a starving man may steal a loaf of bread without com- 
mitting the crime of theft. I believe, in theory, that is an 
error, but practically the loaf-thief may be recommended for 
mercy: In theory he is a thief, but in practice such thieving 
is no moral crime, is excusable. Our Commandment thereon 
is justly peremptory, unexceptional; thieving, robbing, sneak- 
ing goods not ours, is a sin, wrong, a transgression of the law. 
Here is the application of the verse. III M., 19 :15 : ''Thou 
shalt not save or spare (the feelings of) the poor.'' The poor 
may and shall be condoned, but stealing is ever wrong, under 
whatever circumstances. Of course, looked upon from a socio- 
logical, solidary standpoint, the community is to be blamed where 
an honest man has to choose between theft or starvation. 
Stealing is ever wrong, if even a loaf and hungry. Indeed, you 
claim, one loaf may be stolen without sin? How are two 
loaves? or a ton of coals for winter? or a dress for one's wife? 
or five hundred dollars as a dower for our daughter? or a house 
to shelter one's five children? or an heiress for one's hopeful 
son? or a crown for a prince? Where is the sure limit render- 
ing stealing innocent and where a crime? No doubt, God is 
the first owner, but man is the next, and to rob him is sin. 
Thus Cardinal Manning is right as a philanthropist, wrong as 
a lawgiver ! An honest man returns the stipulated value of 
what he received as equivalent. A thief steals, or robs, or 
over-reaches, or gets goods without the consent of the owner, 
or without giving an equivalent in money or work. For sure, 
he tacitly avails himself of Cardinal Manning's argument: I 



iBlackstone took from here his proposition to that effect. 



MANIFOLD STEALINGS, ETC. 113 

am hungry and I must live ! A witty censor forbade the pub- 
lication of a bad book. *'Why do you forbid it?" the author 
asked. ''Because it is worthless," the censor replied, and the 
other said: ''But, I must live." "I do not see the necessity 
thereof," the censor coolly closed. Even so the Mosaic law- 
giver : "Thou shalt not steal," w^hether thou livest or not. 
"Justice, justice pursue".. .Spare no one., .for justice is God's." 

Thus all wrong-doing is some sort of stealing, with intent 
of getting some one's property : The student who neglected 
to learn, and nevertheless insists upon his doctor's diploma ; 
the workman idling away his time and asking for a day's 
wages ; the bad lawyer or physician, practicing and killing his 
case; the ignoramus teaching; the artist bungling and botch- 
ing; the Congregation passing off a catering, unprincipled 
talker as its minister; the politic preacher flattering, fawning 
and dancing around the golden calves on the exchange or in 
the pew^, never teaching the truth, nor improving his hearers — 
that is stealing, implied in the eighth Commandment. 

The newspaper hunting for sensations, praising to the sky 
for a consideration, belittling merit or passing it in silence 
from envy or lack of the awaited price — that is bearing false tes- 
timony and accessory to theft and robbery; publicly refusing 
praise where due and bestowing it where undue, is social 
stealing. Such is the speculator on a grand scale who uses 
hypocritical charity and ostentatious announcements as a 
means of self-advertising, simulation and veiling; the grandi- 
loquent "People's" or "Consumer's Company" adulterating 
food and drink, watering the milk and drugging the flour ; the 
magistrate selling the law for a bribe; the state officer sacri- 
ficing his public duties to increase his chances for a re-election ; 
the legislature enacting laws for monopolies, frail beauty en- 
hancing her charms by artificial means ; the manufacturer, 
confecting shoddy for wool and silk, tallow for butter, sugar 
mixed with clay ; the dealer using a bushel with a double bot- 
tom, short weight and short measure — all that is lying and 
stealing. So is unfairly running for popularity, sneaking out 
the people's good opinion ; plagiarizing others' facts and ideas 
and writing a new book ; trumpeting up fictitious schemes and 
becoming a great man, that is theft and lying. Scattering con- 



114 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

trived war-reports in order to cause a panic with a hausse or a 
baisse on the exchange; artificially raising or depressing the 
public stocks, or lowering the market price in order to buy 
up cheaply; or watering bonds to increase, fictitiously, their 
values, or gambling for margins and inventing fabulous 
schemes — that is theft, robbery and false testimony. Inflam- 
ing the popular passions, arousing a bloody war in order to 
annex provinces ; give out contracts to partisans, and open 
new speculations for hungry millionaires, that is murder, rob- 
bery, theft and false testimony combined. All that flagrantly 
transgresses half of the Decalogue. For all these receive values 
for services not rendered or goods never returned. All these 
lie, kill and bear false witness in order to steal and rob, trans- 
gressing half of all the commandments at one stroke. 

To dismiss honest employees, abruptly, in order to quietly 
lower the poor man's wages, is theft and murder. To arti- 
ficially increase or decrease competition, in order to lower or 
raise prices is murder in disguise. Lowering work and rais- 
ing prices is killing the poor. To waste away public money 
and public trust, under the claim of patriotism and glory, is 
stealing; to use oflice for nepotism, as a sine-curae, for one's 
good friends, is stealing. "Six days shalt thou labor and the 
seventh rest," hence, idling away the week is stealing. To 
dismiss a male employee for a female or for a child, at less 
than half pay for the same labor, is twice stealing. To monop- 
olize a necessary article and create an artificial scarcity on the 
market or the exchange ; to utilize a popular scare, a vain 
rumor and realize un-earned fortunes — is stealing and false 
testimony. "A wheat-corner, a sugar and cofifee-corner, a beef- 
corner, a coal, oil and wood-corner, is no better than the common 
thief of the street corner." 

Here is a huge speculator, who chokes the law with his 
three hundred millions of shining gold pieces, a smart fellow 
who by monopoly contrived to sell goods costing a cent for 
ten cents. But he builds churches and subsidizes universities. 
He steals the entire Decalogue at one blow. 

Romulus, Tullius, both the Tarquinius, Herod the Great and 
their compeers committed cumulative parricide, fomented civil 
wars, swallowed up entire states by unjustifiable wars, but at 
last they erected munificent shrines and temples ! 



MANIFOLD STEALINGS, ETC. 115 

The Muscovite grand dukes have swallowed and annexed 
whole peoples and countries, eliminated their languages, laws 
and nationalities ; robbing and pillaging to the right and the 
left, they have agglomerated half of Europe and Asia. But 
they are orthodox! All that is a shade of stealing :i hypocrisy, 
murder, spoliation and parricide on the grandest scale. They 
are lurid illustrations of what the Ten Commandments depre- 
cate and anathematize. 

After we have discussed the import of the five latter prohibi- 
tory, or negative, practical tenets of the Decalogue, let us take a 
glance at the Agadic suggestions, with their considerations, and 
then again turn our attention to the first half of our theme, the 
affirmative Words, concerning the Deity, the Sabbath, and filial 
piety, the theological, ethical and sociological sides of the Mosaic 
Organic Law. Apparently the first five Commandments are of a 
moral, a theoretical, and the latter five are of a practical nature. 
Looked at from another standpoint, both halves are realistic, 
positive, bearing straight upon their object; whilst all the Ten 
Words aim at the improvement of man, man as he is^ neither 
angel nor demon. 

The first great reality is God. God in Mosaism, is not simply an 
idea, a human abstract concept, or a vague ideal. No ; God in the 
Bible is the Reality, the all-absorbing personality in the world's 
tableau. World and man are fleeting shadows, ephemeral, ever 
changing; God alone is real, constant, permanent, the substance 
behind the form, the reality behind the appearance, the active 
principle behind passive matter, the Creator emanating, irradiat- 
ing, spinning creation out of himself. His legislation, too, is 
positive, personal and realistic. This is the leading^ characteristic 
of the Mosaic Decalogue, a spontaneous, personal act of the 
Deity. It was revealed to Israel, it is the future organic law of 
any human society, an abstract of the slowly prevailing code of 
civilized mankind... It starts with a higher God-idea; proceeds 
to the Sabbath, a higher man-idea; advances to filial piety, a 
higher family-idea ; touches upon the categories of a higher State 
and society idea; warning against the proclivities, the follies, 
vices and crimes human nature is capable of; showing their root 
to be : Greed and covetousness, our so-called Social Question, 
the strife between poor and rich, expressed so grandly, so deeply 
psychologically, in the Tenth Word; "thou shalt not covet." 

iThe dust of stealing. Abak geneiba. (Talmud.) 



ii6 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

The Ten Commandments form thus an outline of a complete 
legislation, which was gradually developed, first in the entire five 
Books of Moses and subsequently in the Talmud, there with 
many changes and variations, corresponding to the needs of each 
century and its environments. From a bird's-eye view, the same 
Ten Words, in scattered rays and traits, are to be detected at the 
bottom of the other world-Codices, those of India, Persia, Baby- 
lonia, Greece, Rome, Egypt ; and substantially in the New Testa- 
ment, the Qoran, the XII Tables and Hammurabi's Stela ; the 
Code of Justinian, of Charlemagne, the Gothic, the Teuton, and 
the modern legislations, down to the Code Napoleon, the English 
and the United States' Common Law. In general outline the 
Decalogue may be thus retraced in nearly each later Codex, each 
with an alteration bespeaking its plan, time and environments. 
Whilst in its original purity, we find it in the Hebraic text extant. 
There alone its enactments are universal, humanitarian, demo- 
cratic; without any bias of nationality, class, country, time or 
circumstances. It is distinguished from its previous, contempor- 
ary or succeeding Codices in salient points, viz : It starts from a 
fundamental ethical principle, the God-belief, and makes that 
the pivot of the entire political structure. It thus spiritualizes 
society, God is the author of all, of universe, country, man and 
law. He is the owner of the sunlight, the farm, the life, the 
daily bread. He is God, King, Chief of the State, dispenser of 
justice, protector of the innocent, avenger of wrong, all pervad- 
ing, omniscient, omnipresent, ordaining all. 

The State-law is God's law, and, if obeyed, will insure peace, 
life and well-being, a wise individual and a happy citizen. The 
observance of the Ten Words is sufficient for that, especially as 
broadened and spiritualized in Leviticus XIX, analyzed above. 
All the remaining enactments are but comments, illustrations, his- 
torical monuments, of symbolical value, timely and local. ^ They 
cover all man's social, ethical and practical needs. Hardly any 
important phase is left out, and all later legislation can easily 
find there its principle and be logically derived therefrom, viewed 
in the light of successive, centuries and circumstances. That 
great, fundamental, doctrinal principle of the Decalogue, per- 

iHillel instructed a heathen: To worship God and love thy next, is 
the essence of the law, the rest is comment. Go and practice! So, too, 
taught Jesus, both following Moses and the prophets. 



MANIFOLD STEALINGS, ETC. n? 

vades the entire later Mosaic and rabbinic^ legislation. It is its 
foundation-stone and its culmination point. It is the base and 
the final vertex of the socio-political pyramid: The man, the 
Israelite, the citizen, the parent, the child, the nation, the cult, 
right and duty. It is the powerful cement of the entire structure. 
As magnetism and electricity permeate the material world, so 
does the Supreme God-idea pervade and hold the Jewish socio- 
logical edifice, from cone to base. It thus spiritualizes, personi- 
fies and vivifies the whole. In fact, it is the Soul and Rule of 
the Israelitish State and Congregation. The "Ecclesia, Keneseth- 
Israel," is the matron and God is the husband. So they are aptly 
termed by Prophets and Agadites. This imparts an imposing 
aspect of strength and Unity to the Mosaic pact and structure. 
That, too, was entailed to the nations. It may be a trait deeply 
pervading the spiritual nature of man. We find that feature 
strongly reflected in most of the later Codes enumerated above. 
Though much weakened, there still we find the God-idea referred 
to by most of legislators, who felt its powerful hold upon man's 
best instincts, the secret spring of his better self. 

TEXT AND AGADAS ON IT. 

Well considered and pondered over, the Mosaic Decalogue, the 
Organic Law of Juda, is not Hebraic, nor Judaean. Just as the 
God of Israel is no national and no local God, but the Lord of the 
universe, of all spheres, regions and peoples, even so is the Ten 
Words Code, not the organic law of a certain people and country, 
but of mankind, of all peoples, regions, sects, times and climes. 
They contain nothing sectarian. The Talmud assumes that the 
two first commandments were uttered by the Deity, direct, to 
the people assembled at the foot of Horeb, and that the other 
eight commandments were delivered to Moses and repeated by 
him from the mount, and that by the numerous echoes, bath-qol, 
they reached the ears of the listening myriads below. If we 
look to the holy text, we read (II. M.19.25), the plain words: 
"And Moses went down the Mount and said to the people . . . Then 
(II M. 20.1, etc.) : 'God spoke all these words.' " viz : the whole of 



iThe Rabbinic legislation answered, besides, to new problems and 
added their own enactments and ceremonies to the Mosaic one; mostly 
as "hedges and enclosures," to ward off the constant, fierce attacks of 
the surrounding idolatries. 



Ii8 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

the Ten Words. At the close of them (verse 19), the text re- 
peats : "The whole people saw . . . and said to Moses : Speak thou 
with us and we shall listen, and not God. . . and the people stood 
from afar, and Moses came near the dark cloud wherein God 
was." This is plain. Another Agada assumes that there was a 
special divine Voice created for that occasion, to carry the Ten 
Words to the ears of the listeners below. ^ The popular senti- 
ment simply assumes that the voice of God brought the Deca- 
logue within the hearing of man and woman, young and old, v/ith- 
out any further metaphysical quibbling. Alluding to the seven 
times repeated word (Qol and Qoloth), ''voice and voices," in 
that revelation, one teacher finely expounds that the divine voice 
was split into seven voices or undertones,^ so as to reach all the 
myriads standing below; whilst another gives the climax in say- 
ing that, the Voice heard from Mount Sinai, was heard in seven 
undertones and in seventy tongues \^ viz : The proclamation of 
the Ten Commandments was and is ever heard in many ways, 
and in all the human languages. Every Israelite and every indi- 
vidual of all the (seventy) nations on earth, every one's con- 
science and every one's common sense received and ever will 
receive and tacitly agree to them. That means, the Decalogue is 
written on the tablets of the heart of every sane man and woman, 
as a general law and universal principle of eternal reason and 
ethical equity. It is the salient epitome of man's self-evident leg- 
islation; all social morality and wisdom is contained in this em- 
bryo of legislation, aiming at the formation of a "kingdom of 
priests and holy nation." 

CONSIDERATIONS, ONCE AND NOW. 

And to these Ten Words Israel answered: "We shall obey. 
Whatsoever God has bidden, we shall perform."'* And that was 
the motto, the war-cry of the Hebraic people on his long and 



1 Maimonides' Guide, assumes here a divine Voice, expressly created, 
which delivered these words. The Creator's divine Yoice is also men- 
tioned by Gentile mystics. 

3R. Johanan said: The voice on Sinai was heard sevenfold and in 
seventy tongues. 

411 M., 24, 7. The Book of the Covenant; including the Decalogue 
and the rudiments of civil and penal laws of Mosaism. 



CONSIDERATIONS, ONCE AND NOW. 119 

dreary march, throughout history, for these thirty-five hundred 
years since Sinai, on a thousand battlefields : '*We shall do and 
obey !" Not success and interest, pleasure or power or conquest 
is that people's final aim ; No ; but "What God has spoken we 
shall perform." March on, Israel, no surrender ! There is a 
historic legend narrating, when in Anno 1815, at the decisive 
battle of Waterloo, the French Grand Army was defeated and 
summoned to surrender, the imperial guard shouted back : ''The 
guard dies, but does not surrender."^ Israel the imperial guard 
of monotheism and the Decalogue, has had many Waterloos in 
his history, and w^henever called upon to surrender and resign 
his mission, he shouted back : Israel dies, but does not surrender ! 
We shall, further on, examine the pages of history and there shall 
learn that the Hebraic people has kept the promise. They never 
surrendered. They had Waterloos, enough, but the guard of the 
Decalogue never gave up. 

In this, our present times of earnest and ominous signs of 
hesitation, backwardness and indiiferentism, of danger lurking 
without and within, of defamation and obloquy on the part of 
anti-Semitism, fomented by priest, mob and university profess- 
ors, by great and petty nationalities refusing to Israel breathing 
space, the right to be, earn a piece of bread and rear a Jewish 
family; when these antagonists, worse than the whilom Span- 
ish Inquisition, aim at ejecting him from Europe, where he has 
contributed such a large share to its culture and its prosperity; 
when mob and scholar and scribbler have the effrontery of re- 
proaching him with — his very virtues : "That he is too successful 
in the battle for existence, too good a banker, a merchant, a 
scientist, an artist, publicist; that he holds back from the hum- 
bler walks of human activities ; that he obviously aspires at be- 
coming an aristocracy, keeping up a state in the state ;" forget- 
ting that by their cruel ostracism, the immense majority of his peo- 
ple live in the utmost poverty, are treated as aliens in the land of 
their birth, mostly confined like hunted beasts, without room 
for development; in this our twentieth century, where the bitter 
struggle for existence has reached even the shores of rich Amer- 
ica, where indifferentism, materialism and the care of the daily 



i"La guarde meures et ne se rend pas!" This historical survey was 
first published in 18 TO, in the Jewish Messenger, New York. It has 
since been repeatedlj republished, with and without the writer's name. 



120 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

subsistence absorb all the energies and efforts, and where man 
thinks so little of all religious, ethical and mental concerns ; at 
such an epoch of complicated and entangling racial, political, re- 
ligious, social and economical phenomena, it is highly opportune 
to bring before the mind of thinking people, the glorious epochs 
of the past, of great moral and mental upheavals, as that of the 
Exodus, Sinai, the Decalogue, Monotheism; the struggles and 
the triumphs of by-gone centuries ; that the present generation 
may discern what other more formidable Pharaohs and Hamans, 
hates and prejudices their ancestors had to contend with, what 
"hard times" they had to confront, and that they passed all these 
ordeals and happily vanquished them by character, conviction, 
patience and perseverance, the indomitable will-power "to do 
what God has bidden." 

Further on we shall amply quote from history in support of 
this, showing that Israel is not an aristocracy by war, conquest, 
or finance, but one of mind, labor and sacrifice ; that he does 
represent the "kingdom of priests and holy nation," as the official 
teacher of Monotheism and the expounder of the Ten Comniand- 
ments, that this is his diploma of nobility; that his object is not 
self-aggrandizement, but the advance of mankind whose van- 
guard and champion he is ; that his efforts and labors are to make 
mankind the "kingdom of priests and holy nation," to have all 
mythology step back, give honor to the owner of heaven and 
earth; merge all aristocracies in that of civilized mankind, and 
all privileges in that of human rights and universal justice. 

American Israel, gather around your standard, look up to 
Sinai, to its great revelation, to the Decalogue, to this platform 
of an Israel-mankind, the prophetic ideal. Do not split upon 
the dangerous rock of orthodoxy or reform. Cling to the 
essence of Judaism, that will lead you safely to the land of 
promise. Cling with heart, brain and hand to that platform. 
Reason, science and plain, common sense coincide with it, and 
mankind will finally accept it. In the meantime, when called 
upon to merge with the majority, answer: We are happy, 
socially and politically to be part of the great western civiliza- 
tion, and of the American people ; both of which we have helped 
making ; but as Israelites we cling to the doctrines of the One God 
in Spirit, to the Ten Words, and to the historical motto of our flag ; 
"Whatever the Eternal has spoken we shall perform." This our 
platform we shall surrender only to mankind when accepting it 
fully, entirely and plainly. 



121 

Study /F.— THE ONE GOD OF THE DECALOGUE. 
Theme: I am Ihvh, thy God. Exod., xx, 1-2. 

Having had a succinct survey of the tenor of the Decalogue, 
let us now analyze its single leading features. The import 
of its opening verses, H M., xx, 2, is adequately set forth by the 
following pointed remark of the Rabbis : The Thora, the 
Mosaic Law, does not begin with (I M., i, 1) : In the begin- 
ning God created ; no, that is metaphysics ; nor with the his- 
tory of Abraham, that is tradition and genealogy; nor with 
Exodus, that, too, is tradition. The Thora, really commences 
with II M., XX, 2 : 'T am Ihz'h, thy God, who has brought thee 
out of the land of Egypt." That is Thora, Israel's great doc- 
trine ! Indeed, what is the Bible's historic message to Jew and 
Gentile : *'I am the Eternal, thy God ;" God exists, God is Ihvh, 
the Supreme Being, the Absolute, the Reality of existence, the 
Spiritual Substance, the Supreme Cause, the Source of all In- 
telligence, the Creative Power, Mind. The universe is not 
the result of chance, brute force and inert matter ; and human 
history is not ruled by force, cunning and over-reaching. No, 
both m.an and the world are guided and superintended by God, 
the Supreme Mind, all-wise, all-powerful, all-pervading, all- 
just, providing for all. 

But did not the heathens, too, teach that Deity exists and 
rules? Yes; the heathens taught the existence and the rule of 
— ten thousand genii, or gods, and ten thousand principles, 
genii, or gods are tantamount to none, that is chaos. That 
means mere chance and cannot be the rule of conduct, neither 
in the universe nor in man's world. 

Again, the heathen gods were simply forces, agents ; now, 
ten thousand forces, ever in conflict, meant war, the eternal 
clashing of heterogenous volitions, interests. Just so the 
gods are depicted by Homer, Hesiod, the Hindu, Baby- 
lonian, Egyptian and Assyrian Cosmogonies, the Edda, the 
Niebelungen poems and mythologies. They all depict the 
ever warring forces of nature and of men. Hence there con- 
tinued in the human world, as in the universe, war, brute 
force, over-reaching, barbarism; no room for justice, sympa- 
thy, peace. Mosaism teaches : One God, all-holy,^ supreme 

nnt< min ,nvi^ ^jx mip ^3 - nn« mn^ i 



122 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

Law, harmony, intelligence and fitness, pervading the uni- 
verse, subordinating all to His all-guiding will, design and 
Providence everwhere. And that suggests harmony, justice, 
beneficence and peace among men; That makes room for civi- 
lization. So the solemn closing meditation of the daily 
prayer: **He who makes peace in the universal space — He 
will grant peace to us all.^ (Adoration prayer). 

Is God the reality of the universe, or the ideal of man? 
There are doubters and scoffers and downright atheists. 
When we inquire at materialism, at the market, the five 
senses, the surgeon's knife, we meet with no God or soul. 
But when we inquire of our conscience, our innermost con- 
sciousness, our common sense, of the moral sciences, and of 
the large majority of leading thinkers, they coincide with the 
Bible: "1 am the Eternal thy God." La Mettrie, and De Hol- 
bach assumed : Man is a machine,^ and the universe, too. But 
Voltaire remarked: 'Tf there were no God, we would have 
to invent him.^ J. J. Rousseau and Diderot decidedly believed 
in the Divine Existence. Frederick H of Prussia yet doubted. 
Schiller alludes ''to the cunningly devised Savior of the sickly 
world scheme, which human wit contrived for human needs.^" 
Herbert Spencer^ bows his head in reverence before the God- 
idea. He dares not say what God is, but he absolutely affirms 
that God is. The Divine Existence is assumed as self-evident, 
as the unknowable Reality behind changeable, evanescent 
nature, as the spiritual Essence of the material universe, as the 
sacred Source, of mind and energy, the universal Soul and the 
Supreme Cause. Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, Pythagoras and 
Plotin, fully believed in the existence of God. The Hindu Brah- 
manic thinkers, the Qabbalistic philosophers, Gabirol and 
Maimonides, far from orthodox in their rationalism, thor- 



2L'hoEQme machine, a famous book, of the 18th century. 
3S'il n'y avaict pas de Dieu, il faudrait I'inventer. 
4Des kranken Weltplans schlau erdachte Retter den Menschenwitz der 
Menschen Notdurft leihet. 
5His first principles, page 13. 



THE ONE GOD OF THE DECALOGUE. 123 

oughly and fully accept and leach the fa'th ii tL. di\ ' le Being 
as self-evident. And even so Spinoza, the much misunder- 
stood and decried Hebrao-Hollandish philosopher, believes in 
God as the only reality in the universe, the universe as ephe- 
meral, a wavelet on the ocean-surface. God alone is eternal 
and real. In our own times the bitter struggle for existence 
has made much havoc in that greatest conception of civilized 
man. Nevertheless, in their sober moods, the doubting 
masses instinctively shrink from atheistic assumptions. They 
feel, as Heine pointedly says : ''Doubting the existence of 
God, makes me feel as if in a lunatic asylum, just liaving lost 
my guide." The large majority of the thinkers and of the 
sober, sane masses, assume, with the Bible, God to be self- 
evident, reflected from the outward facts into our mind, in the 
universe and in human history. We feel the accuracy of this 
(V M. iv:12, 19) pregnant passage concerning our theme: 
"Ye approached the Mount Horeb in a blaze of fire . . . whence 
God spake to you. . .A speaking voice you heard, but you saw 
no similitude. And He promulgated unto you His convenant. . . 
the Ten Words. . .Beware and take heed, ye saw no similitude 
when God spoke to you on Horeb . . . lest ye corrupt your- 
selves and shape unto you any image, figure or likeness, of 
anything in earth, air or water, or even the hosts of heaven 
worshipped by the nations.. . .The Lord has redeemed you 
from Egypt, that iron furnace, to be unto him his own people 
and inheritance." This passage sets fully forth the Mosaic 
God-idea, his Unity, incorporeality, spirituality. 

DIVINE EXISTENCE. COMMON SENSE PROOF OF. 

Of the many testimonies to the existence of God, let us first 
look at the common sense one ; that being the most undubit- 
able, salient, convincing, and easily accessible one to the aver- 
age Biblical reader : Here I hold a piece of paper, a tiny, hum- 
ble trifle, of small utility and no mercantile value ; neverthe- 
less you will at once accede, that it has a cause, a maker, it 
did not come into existence by mere chance, or by self-crea- 
tion, but that somebody must have made it. Now here this 
house, this city, this country, this continent, this globe, this 
solar system in boundless space, with its fixed stars, each a 
world of its own — all that is the creation of hazard, says ma- 



124 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

terialism ! Is that not unreasonable ? Again see : This same, 
small, humble leaf of paper, bears some black marks, charac- 
ters, symbols, letters, making out words and ideas, conveying 
to you and me, some logical thoughts, apparently entertain- 
ed by some one who wrote down these lines? . . Or would you 
rather assume that these characters, signifying solid ideas, are 
the effect of blind accident, mere chance? Would you assume 
that an inkstand was turned over this blank leaf and by m.ere 
hazard it produced — signs, letters, words, rational ideas? 
Would not such an assumption be most irrational? Seeing 
here lines of characters spread out in ink as symbols of logical 
sentences, you are logically constrained to assume, as self- 
evident, that here, being design, there must be here a de- 
signer ? being effect, there must be an adequate cause, viz : a 
being with reason and will, which intently made these con- 
ventional marks, in order to impart to you what he thought? 
Now look, materialism denies this plain argument. It as- 
sumes that ink turned over and by mere chance, turned into 
logical ideas ! Nay, more : Materialism claims that this uni- 
verse, with its millions of worlds, with their eternally fixed 
laws, their grandeur, beauty, fitness, and wonderful design, 
this infinity of means converging towards one object, one 
illimitable harmony, all that came into existence Vvathout a de- 
signer, by mere, blind accident ! Consider : this small written 
leaflet must have an intentional, rational maker, but this won- 
derful, boundless universe sprang into existence by accident? 
all these grand means for their sublime end — are chance? 
Everything has its maker, every effect presupposes its cor- 
responding cause, the universe alone has no maker and no Cause ? 
Here alone, this marvellous design has no designer? 

DESIGN IN NATURE. 

Wherever you look, you find design, from the blade of grass 
to the solar system ; and Science discovers daily more and 
more wonderful design, adaptation of means to ends. Must 
this not make the Great Designer self-evident? ''Behold the 
lilies of the field more gorgeously dressed than Solomon in all 
his glory." Contemplate this blade of grass, this stalk of corn, 
with the tiny organs of nutrition, secretion, growth, develop- 
ment, propagation ; or examine the human hand : what a fine 



DESIGN IN NATURE. 125 

tool for action and work, for defense and offense, to attract 
and repel, to hold, take and execute whatever your desire 
dictates, a house, a picture, a poem, a book, a hit, a caress. 
Consider the ear, its external and internal parts, to receive the 
finest shades of sound, to recognize among a hundred voices 
that of a friend, a foe, a stranger, if of joy or of distress. Look 
to the eye, a compound of mirrors, wonderfully reflecting the 
world in miniature pictures, with an exact estimate of their 
real dimensions and proportions. Guess at the brain, a mass 
of nerves producing sensations and thoughts, out of the 
rough material brought in by the senses, with the aid of some 
mysterious higher sense, reason or mind — just as the piano 
produces the music latently alive in the pianist. That mys- 
terious, wonderful function of the brain develops or distills 
rational ideas out of crude sensuous perceptions, constructs 
new ideas, concepts and conclusions, one on the top of the 
other. It weighs and measures and counts the globe, planets, 
sun and fixed stars, em.braces the universe and fathoms the 
Creator's thoughts and objects. Analyze this water drop by 
the help of a microscope, and see its millions of infusoria 
struggling for existence, just as we, men on earth do, busily 
running and fighting, triumphing and failing — a w^orld in a 
waterdrop ! Now leave the microscope, take up the telescope, 
and examine the vast expanse of heaven, or the boundless 
space of the Milky Way, with its myriads of stars, fixed stars, 
dependent planets, trabants, rings, trains, all converging in 
prescribed orbits, world-wide apart, requiring aeons of years 
to reach one another, scattered as our flovv^ers, in the boundless 
universal space ; each fixed star a complete world, with its 
own solar system, its eternal fixed laws, each world a har- 
monious part of the totality of the universe; the molecule, the 
planet, the sun, well fitting in the whole. As the microscope 
shows us a world in a drop of water, even so the telescope 
points to the infinity of worlds in the boundless firmament of 
the universe. See yonder shining speck in the blue sky ; it is 
a fixed star, as vast as our ovs^n Sun-globe with all its planets 
and trabants. This ray of light you now meet, has been 
a million of years on its journey to reach your eye ! Ponder 
over this universe with its myriads of worlds, all following 
up one plan, one grand scheme, one primordial design, cal- 



126 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

culated to meet one, to us, unknowable object, i the order, the 
harmony, the collusion and the correspondence of all as one 
grand totality, making up together the Universe, nature, ex- 
istence, the final object of that one-world scheme. Contem- 
plate here what a plan, what a grand design, what divine 
harmony, what exact order, what sublime beauty! Here is 
nowhere any friction, any break, wrangling, pulling, pinching, 
squeezing of star or planet or molecule ; no struggle for exist- 
ence among these huge heavenly bodies ; no encroaching upon 
the neighbor, no grasping and hoarding for self and starving 
of others, as with men. No, all is peace, order, amity, har- 
mony. There is room, light, life, space and provision for all ; 
for this fly, that atom of dust, and yonder Solar System. 

Does this not prove design, divine Providence, Providential 
Wisdom? Can we doubt Supreme Intelligence? When such an 
infinity of means corresponds to such an infinite object, does that 
not prove design? Now, when there is design in the universe, 
in nature, must there not be a Designer? When we see such 
a mighty effect, nature ; must there not be its adequate Cause, 
God ? Closely contemplate nature, open its folios and read : 
what is there ineffaceably engraved ? : "I am the Eternal, thy 
God." God is the All-Power, the All-Intelligence, the All- 
Benignity, the All-Holiness ; the Cause, Creator, Designer and 
Providence of nature. Nature is his visible embodiment; its 
every page, all proclaim : God is ! 

SCIENCE ON THE GOD-CONCEPTION. 

Positive Science declares the God-idea as beyond and above its 
sphere. Exact Science deals with experiences and their con- 
clusions. It discusses the data of our five senses ; God is beyond 
and above the senses, hence is he not to be reached by science. 
Therefore it can neither prove nor disprove ; nor define, nor 
analyze the God-being; still we shall see, it bows its head in 



(Maimonides, Guide III, part 13.) — The object and final aim of the 
universe, Aristotle and Maimonides agree, is beyond the ken of man, 
each part is a necessary link, but the workings of all is beyond human 
intellect. The Divine Will is the final Cause, the eternal fitness, and 
this may be the real sense of the hoary "fatum," anagnke, necessity. 



SCIENXE ON THE GOD-CONCEPTION. 127 

reverence for that idea, that necessary and universal human as- 
sumption ; since the universe exists, man believed that God, its 
Maker, must exist, and this he assumed as self evident. Only 
ignorance and presumption are atheistic. ^ 

Positive science deals with matter and force. Our experiences 
thereof come in by the avenues of the five senses. Hence is the 
God-existence out of their reach. But moral science justly 
guesses the first Cause and the final Cause, the Reality behind 
the oscillating, fluctuating appearance, the Eternal Essence of the 
ephemeral, changeable and decaying infinity of bodies. That 
Essence it cannot define, but calls it Spirit, Mind, Universal Soul. 
Thus physical science denies not, and moral science affirms that 
God is ! ' 

But when asked: What is God? What is the plain definition? 
]\Ian cannot answer ; and just so the Bible, "I am thy God ;" still 
it is emphasized : "You saw no similitude on Horeb." — "No man 
saw Ale and lives." — "Thou wilt see My back, but My face is 
not visible." We know that God is, we know not zvhat God is. 
We cannot raise the veil of nature, nor look behind its abyssmat 
screen. How could we? Man, an atom, cannot embrace God, 
the All; a body, he cannot define mind; a creature, he cannot 
explore the Creator. Will you ask the watch to explain the 
watchmaker? or ask the w^ater-drop to fathom the ocean? Nev- 
ertheless the watch proves the watchmaker, and the drop points 
to the ocean. Even so, since man is, God must be, too. Man 
knows little of matter and less of mind. The ancient sages 
forbade to speculate on metaphysics^ as barren and misleading. 
But Bible and Talmud, moralists and rational men, all coincide 
in the existence of the Supreme Mind-Power. Any trial at defi- 
nition leads to superstition and idolatry. The Jewish philoso- 
phers, from the Talmud and Qabbala to Maimonides, declined 
all attributes, all names, all descriptions and attempts at the 
definition of the Deity. Even so do Emanuel Kant, Herbert Spen- 
cer, Tindall, Alexander Von Humboldt, Darwin, decline any and 
all attributes of Deity, any vulgar definition, any official theology. 
Still they all acquiesce and coincide in this ; that behind the 
screen of nature there abides the mysterious, yea, unknowable 
Lord of nature. Kant as Herbert Spencer show at great 



1 The fool thinks, there is no God. Psalms xiv, i. 

2 Speculate not in public on divinity and on creation. — Hagiga, 2b. 



128 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

length that nothing metaphysical is in the sphere of exact knowl- 
edge; that atheism, pantheism and theism are equally transcen- 
dental, all being beyond our senses. (Herbert Spencer: Pure 
Reason, First Principles, p. 36). They assent to the logical 
category of a Supreme Cause; but how, and \vhat? That is un- 
knowable.. .And just so the Bible: '*I am thy God.. .Thou canst 
see My back, not My face. . .You can see nature, not the First 
Cause of nature, nor know its final aim, ''for God's thoughts are 
not man's thoughts. "^ 

THE BIBLICAL DIVINE NAMES. 

V/hat is the meaning of Elohim, Ihvh, Shaddai, Adonai, lah, 
Hanun, El-Elyon, Ahad,^ etc., in the S. Script, and Talmud 
attributed to the Deity? The Bible, seemingly, offers them as 
names, appellatives, designations of the One Supreme Being. 
But they are expounded by the rabbis as not being names, nor 
even positive attributes, for that would be limitations or addi- 
tions to the Only One, but as mere negative attributes ; they 
show what God is not, thus discarding all misunderstandings; 
they teach that He alone is God, the All-Power, the Supreme 
Being, the Cause, the Providence and Protector, the Master, the 
Benign, the Highest, the Only One. They are all negative attri- 
butes, they mean that the God of the Bible admits of no plurality, 
that the heathen gods or forces are all absorbed in Him, He being 
the All-Power, He the Essence of Being, the Creator of all, with- 
out any differentiation or limitation. He is the universal Provi- 
dence, not as the national or local gods of heathendom; He is 
the Merciful, the Highest and the Only One, i. e., unequaled, 
immutable and incomparable. The rabbis again designate Him 
as the Place, Maqom, of the universe, as the Heavens, or as the 
Infinite Space, Zrvana Akarana.^ They are careful even with 
these negative attributes. They declare even these Biblical des- 
ignations to be but lower, emanated degrees of the Deity, so to 
say His manifestations, as He appears to Man's limited intelli- 



ris. 55,6) "1 m^: DD^nuE^njo ^nu:^'njD n^ '•^i 



3The Persian designation of Eternity, of Space and of Time. 



THE BIBLICAL DIVINE NAMES. 129 

gence, as revealed in the world. As such they are assumed by 
the Talmud, Agadas, Maimonides.^ The Qabbalists call that 
the Ten Scphirothy the emanated divine rays of the Supreme. He 
is boundless, unqualified, undifferentiated. Eternal Existence, He 
is the breath, life, Intellectus Activus and light of all the beings ; 
but He is and ever will remain unknowable, enveloped in impen- 
etrable mystery for man. They call him the Infinite, Ain-Soph, 
the Mystery of Mysteries,- and allude to these Biblical names as 
also to their own philosophical designations, as emanations and 
subordinate divine agents, sim.ply as phases and rays of the Deity 
personified by human short-sightedness ; if you will, as philo- 
sophical nomenclatures. 

Concerning anthropomorphism, degenerating in heathendom 
to downright idol-worship, we find that the Decalogue ordains : 
"Ye shall have no other gods in My presence." God, omni- 
present and omniscient, all supporting and all pervading, ex- 
cludes the possibility of any other independent divinity. ''Thou 
shalt not make unto thee any graven image or any likeness, in 
stone, ore or colors. As men were eager to grasp the Deity with 
their senses, so the accommodating priests declared Him to be 
the ancestor, the king, hero or victor; the eagle, crocodile, the 
Apis-bull, or the star. So man attempted to fix his own puerile 
God-concept, purely anthropomorphic, into marble or color. 
Hence Mosaism, deprecating any false theology and inaccurate 
definitions, forbade all material representations and incarnations, 
as misleading and conducive to idolatry. 

GOD AND CREATION. 

As we cannot tell what God is, even so can we not say how 
He made the universe : God and creation, both are beyond our 
ken. Mosaism is silent on this. Genesis simply affirms : "God 
said, Xet there be,' and it was." The philosophers guess crea- 
tion came on by divine thought, the Verb, or emanation, viz. : 
that the Deity irradiated the universe. Mind bore matter, just 
as the sun streams forth its light-rays. Such divine rays con- 
densed, hardened, and dim.m.ed the light until it became body I 
Scientifically we can say and prove nothing. Em.anation 

iMaimonides, Yad Mada and Guide. Such are the Talmudic anthro- 
pomorphistical allegories. 



HD^riD P31 no\nD ,n-i^Dn p3i m^Dn .^id px 



>w 2 



130 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

is just as unintelligible to our human reason and our exped- 
iences as is creation, miraculously making something out of noth- 
ing. As little can we explain in what mode inert matter evolves 
life, or how the brain ganglia produce thought, how spirit unites 
with the body and induces mental and moral activities. We see 
in man matter united to mind, but how this is effected, we know 
not. Genesis, 1 :2, answers : "By the will or word of God." The 
same say Gabirol, Maimonides, Qabbala, the Talmud. Male- 
branche and Geulinx say : ''As an artist watch-maker will manu- 
facture two clocks so exactly identical that, without any con- 
nection and without any reciprocal influence, they will go exactly 
alike and ever point to exactly the same time, even such is the 
harmony between body and mind. They call that occasionalism. 
That is ingenious, but the Biblical mode is less pretentious and 
more to the point. It does not claim to pry into the divine labo- 
ratory of creation ; it teaches us what is useful and leaves alone 
what is to us unknowable. Jewish philosophers generally imi- 
tate that discretion. God is infinite spirit, wisdom, power, good- 
ness, holiness, perfection. He has no shape, or name and unites 
his infinite attributes in a perfect unity. That Supreme Mind 
created, emanated or brought forth matter, the bodily universe, 
in a way not intelligible to us. Buchner, Huxley, Hakel, as once 
La Mettrie and De Holbach, say: ''There is no mind, there is 
but matter and force." — Does this better explain than the Bibli- 
cal modus? Is the materialistic dogmatism more lucid? The 
exaggerating followers of Darwin's evolution theory, believe that 
the matter, impinged and actuated by its ever inherent force, 
evolved the universe, i. e., that matter developed mind, brain se- 
creted thought ! That is tantamount to the claim that, ink spilt 
upon paper, will create an intelligent book ! The Biblical, wise 
discretion answers best : God created the universe, mind evolved 
matter. God, the Supreme Cause, the Intellectus Activus, Good- 
ness and Perfection, made the universe wise, good, befitting. 

CAUSE OF EVIL. R. AQIBA AND VEDANTA. 

But why is man's own world, his own history, so stupid, so 
hap-hazard? Why is there disorder, malice, hate, tears and dis- 
appointment? Why wrong, folly and vice? Already in Job is 
this problem discussed : What is the cause of evil in this human, 
nether world? Why is the serenity, order, peace and happiness, 



CAUSE OF EVIL. R. AQIBA AND VEDANTA. 131 

the undisturbed harmony in the physical universe, so much 
missed in this narrow, terrestrial, human world? So, too, asked 
the prophets : "Thou, the pure-eyed One, who refusest to see 
evil, why dost thou look at the wrong-doers? Why art thou 
silent when the wicked oppresses him far better than himself? 
So, too, speculated the rabbis : Here is a righteous man un- 
happy, and here a wicked one happy ?^ The Talmudists offer a 
hint to the solution : Evil comes not from God, but from the 
imperfections of man. '*A fully and really good man will ever 
be happy, but when only half good, only apparently good, he will 
not. Human history is, in part, shaped by human hands. Man 
is happy or not, just as himself and liis neighbors make him.^ 
It is human selfishness and stupidity, ambition, jealousy, invid- 
iousness and greed, his vicious passions all, which cause man's 
ills. It is thus just man's freedom of will which, when abused, 
turns to man's misfortunes, of himself and his neighbors. Ev- 
erything in nature is subject to rule, to inexorable law, and this 
law, impregnated with divine wisdom and benignity, tends to the 
welfare of all. Human selfishness, shortsightedness and ill- 
directed passions retain a certain share, a margin of autonomy. 
This margin man often abuses and this abuse is the cause of his 
own and his fellow-men's Evil; it induces envy, vice, crime and 
disappointment, failure, pain and tears. 

R. Aquiba formulated this in a fine scriptural interpretation. 
(Genesis, III, 22.)^ ''Behold, man is as one of us to know good 
and evil." That strange-sounding verse means, he boldly ex- 
plains: "Behold, man is, out of entire nature, the only one ex- 
ception to choose by himself, between good and evil, he is the 
only creature endowed with free will. Hinc lacrimae! hence his 
troubles ; he is free to choose, and is not ever wise to make the 
best choice; hence, vice, tears and mishap in the human world, 
a sphere mostly created by himself, his good and wicked instincts ; 
while in the vast universe there is supreme, inexorable law, the 
effulgence of Supreme Wisdom, and this does not allow the 



(Berachoth) ]}i2 m«"io n^yv "lint: 1 
pnv |3 pnv ...nioi irNBj' p''nv ...iidj p''nv ...Tytj^n vt^na trnnn no!) 

2Maimonides, Guide, part III, answers in the same way. See there, 
Chapters 12-15. 

yni niD 1:00 nyrb mn Kin dikh s 



132 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

wrong to prevail and the just to be oppressed. Something akin 
and further developed we find in the Hindu Vedanta philosophy:^ 
Evil comes into the world, not by God's oversight or shortcom- 
ings, no, by man's ; but this comes not by his own, individual, 
personal sinfulness, but by his own and that of his fellows and 
surroundings : The shortcomings of his fellow-men and his 
fellow-creatures and from all eternity. The viciousness and fail- 
ings of all of them are entailed and weigh upon him, crush him 
and make him suffer; and from such a load he can be redeemed 
but gradually, by the improvement of all his fellow-creation." 
This is the far-reaching Hindu doctrine of universal solidarity, 
transcending our theme proper, but of the highest interest for 
thinking readers. The failures, vices and tears of man are derived 
not only from himself, but mostly from his being heir to all the 
shortcomings entailed from his ancestors, fellow-men, fellow- 
creatures, fellow-creation, since all eternity. Only then may man 
expect to be fully happy, when all these defects will be eliminated, 
the entire world improved and become perfect, and this perfecti- 
bility appears to be implied in the world-scheme and is actually 
going on, the universe is ever improving. — A great idea I^ 

A glimpse of this theory, I believe to find in the much quoted 
Guide of Maimonides, part HI, with some slight Jewish varia- 
tion : "Most of man's ills derive from himself, himself a growth 
from the frail sperma and female blood. . .and generally from his 
very origin, earthly matter, full of imperfections. There is the 
source of human troubles. The sage must resign himself to it." 
The ethical developm.ents of this Hindu doctrine the Jewish 
teacher passes in silence. 

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE AND THE NEBULAR 

THEORY. 

It was at the dawn of the now past nineteenth century when 
Napoleon Bonaparte, as yet in the bright morning of his meteor- 
like career, was camping, with his victorious army, at the foot 
of the pyramids, in Egypt. Surrounded by his brave generals 
and some of the leading scholars of the French Sorbonne, he 
listened to a learned discourse by one of those professors on the 
important theme, ''The Nebular Theory." It propounded : That 

iSee my Philosophy Qabbala and Vedanta, p. 252, and Max Mueller'i 
Vedanta on this point. 

2The Adoration prayer (Oleinu) may allude to this same idea: "We 
hope to Thee... to improTe the universe by thy divine ruling." 



NAPOLEON BONAPARTE AND THE NEBULAR THEORY. 133 

the universe came out by chance, without design, without a de- 
signer or any inteUigence shaping means to ends. There is 
nothing but matter and force inherent in matter; matter, force 
and chance made the all. Originally there was but chaos with 
molecules ; all a fog, an ocean of minute corpuscula filling the 
infinity of space, an eternal monotony, in undisturbed rest, all 
inert, lifeless, motionless. At once, by sojiic accident ( ^^ a 
shock came into that world-mass of dead, silent particles. That 
shock disturbed the foggy atoms of the universal, sleeping mass. 
It disrupted and divided itself into large groups, according to 
chemical affinities. They began to tumble and fall, some quicker 
and some slower, according to their specific weight and attrac- 
tions, thus coalescing with other cognate matter, forming with 
them larger, separate bodies, rounded globes adhering to their 
centers bv affinity and the force of gravitation, thus differen- 
tiating in separate globes according to the same laws. The largest 
became stars and then fixed stars, attracting to themselves 
smaller bodies, the planets, their rings, trabants, etc. into the 
orbits of their own, airy spaces. These self-made suns radiating 
their light and heat, produced on their planets evaporations, 
clouds and rainfall ; so came vegetation, the animal kingdom and 
at last man, with his brain distilling — all by itself — thoughts, 
intelligence, aspirations, experiences, theories, science, laws, 
schemes of creed, community, state, civilization ; all, originating in 
m.atter and force and stimulated by chance ! No primordial 
mind, no intelligence, no design and no designer, no architect, 
except — that accidental brute shock,, by mere blind chance, that 
caused and produced all ! — Napoleon Bonaparte listened intently 
to this highly interesting discourse, but he felt most disappointed 
at that sad conclusion, staking the universe upon that poor, acci- 
dental shock, giving the impulse to creation. Pausing for a 
while, raising his eyes to the bright, luminous, starry heavens 
of a beautiful Egyptian night, and pointing with his hand to 
that enrapturing starry expanse, he slowly and deliberately ut- 
tered these commonsense words: ''And all this is but chance? 
That is impossible l"^ And the entire brilliant assembly of 
uniformed listeners repeated : "Impossible !" And the common- 
sense of all times will repeat : That is impossible ! 



lEt tout cela n'est que chance? C'est impossible! 



134 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

PSALMIST, JOB, KANT, HERBERT SPENCER. 

Even so the meditation of Psalm XIX : "The Heavens 
proclaim the glory of God, and the firmament announces his 
handiwork. Day unto day and night unto night repeat this 
manifestation. Without speech or tongue or audible voice, still 
their rays over-span the earth and their utterances reach the 
end of the world." Even this is the theme discussed by the poet- 
philosopher in the Biblical book of Job. When happy and satis- 
fied we willingly admit the all-presence of Diety, Providence, 
All-wise divine governmient. But when under a cloud, we are 
much inclined to assume that mere chance rules. So the God- 
head silences murmuring, unhappy Job: "Who is it that obscures 
good sense with foolish words? Gird thy loins and answer my 
questions : Where wast thou when I laid the earth's foundations ? 
Where are its bases and where its corner-stone? What holds in 
bonds the ocean? Where are its sources? Didst thou ever com- 
mand the dawn, or tune the harmonies of the morning stars? 
Didst thou ever reach the abysses of the sea? Knowest thou 
whence comes light? Why darkness, heat and cold? Canst thou 
bind up the Pleiades or loosen Orion? or lead and bring forth 
Manaroth in time, or guide Ardhteus and its young? Knowest 
thou the orders of the heavens or the norms of matter?. . .And 
Job replies : "Alas, I am too mean, I cannot answer ... I put my 
hand on my lips !"^ .. .Alas, the creature of yesterday cannot 
solve the problems of eternity. Our eyes are dazzled by the sun- 
light, how can we claim to define the Sun of all suns? Even so 
the philosopher Kant : "Two witnesses testify to the existence of 
God, the starry heavens above and our humane consciousness 
within us." Even so Herbert Spencer (First Principles, page 
13): "The God-Idea is no invention. . .Duly considered, the 
diverse forms of religious belief have all a basis in some ultimate 
fact. . .To suppose them absolutely groundless, discredits human 
intelligence. . .Religious ideas of one kind or another are almost 
universal and omnipresent. (Ibidem, page II:.) A candid ex- 
amination of the evidence, quite negatives the opinion that creeds 
are priestly inventions. . .Their universality, their evolution, their 
great vitality show that their source is deep-rooted . . . We are 
logically compelled to admit that, if not supernatural, they must 



iJob, Chapters 38-40. 



SUMMING UP. 135 

be derived out of human experiences slowly accumulated and 
organized.". . . (Ibid., 15-lG.) The religious ideas resulted, along 
with all other human faculties, either from an act of special crea- 
tion, or by a process of evolution. . .never by an invention of 
priests. . . and are conducive to human welfare. . ." 

SUMMING UP. 

Let us summarize what we have seen above : The leading 
doctrine of the Decalogue, the corner-stone of the Mosaic State, 
is the God-concept; God in the Universe, in the State, the 
Church, the home ; He is the all-pervading, dominating influence. — 
Did not paganism also teach that? Yes, but too many, 10,000 
gods ! That means 10,000 principles ! The Bible teaches one 
principle, and that is all-important. Again, the pagan god is 
force, the biblic one is holiness. The pagan many gods mean,, 
necessarily, war and conflict; the Biblical Only One is harmony 
and peace. Hence is the Mosaic God-idea alone the base of 
civilization : Hearing the testimony of science, common-sense 
and conscience, we gained there our God-conviction. Examining 
then nature, we found there God; not simply as an ideal, but as 
the Reality. You, I, this city, the Sun — all, are but accidental, 
dependent, ever evanescent; God alone is absolute, permanent 
and his own Cause ;i God is before nature; God is, even when 
nature is to be no longer. 

What is God ? We know not. He is unknowable to human ken. 
A God definable by m^an is no God at all. We cannot raise the 
veil of nature, far less see God's face. Ihvh, Elohim, Adonai, etc., 
designate but our own partial concepts of Him, never His Es- 
sence, ever shrouded in mystery, impenetrable to human gaze. 
(I Kings, viii., 12). 'Thvh is pleased to rest in nebulae." How 
did He create the All ? The Bible is reticent. All it does state is 
that Mind evolved matter ; whilst materialism claims : Matter 
evolved mind. Now, of these two unfathomable assertions, the 
biblical one is by far the more satisfactory. Genesis, Chapter I, 
is not a history of the mode of creation; that mode remains an 



iWhat is the cause and what is the final object of the Divine Exist- 
ence? Artistotle replies: "Since God is eternal and absolute, such 
questions are inadmissible." Kant replies: "Such questions are use- 
less, transcendental. Transcending human intelligence and foolish is 
the question: 'What is the final object of the world?'" Maimonides 
assuming the universe created, is not fully consistent on this problem. 
(Guide, part III); a hard nut! 



136 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

open problem, probably never to be solved by men. We then 
examined the Nebular Theory, the materialistic conception of 
Creation without a Creator, Intelligence, desig-n or designer, cre- 
ation by chance, by a mere accidental shock, and found that 
shocking indeed, contrary to all experience and common-sense. 

Thus we have seen that positive, materialistic science, that the 
market, the exchange, the politics, the five senses, the physician's 
knife, do not discover the Divine Presence in the universe. But 
when we look to our conscience, to nature, to moral science, to 
the large majority of thinkers and to common sense especially, 
we find the confirmation of the Decalogue : "I am the Eternal, 
thy God." As there, so we find God in the universe, in history, in 
the various temples of all times, in our hearts and in our intelli- 
gence ; we find that, in last resort, not chance, force and cun- 
ning rule, but Supreme wisdom, justice, fitness, equity; that the 
universe is formed and superintended by the Being All-holy. 
"1 am the Eternal," is thus the foundation stone of the Mosaic 
society. For the idea of God-holy creates man-holy, with justice, 
peace and good will in the universe and among men. It sancti- 
fies all the relations between citizen and State, man and fellow- 
man, parent and child, husband and wife. Whilst the hypothesis 
of no-God but force, makes man a brute, and selfishness, bar- 
barism and war the norm of society. Hence stands our human 
civilization on the rock of the Decalogue, a Holy-God makes for 
a civilized man, a pure family and a civilized State. This is the 
net result of our preceding meditation. 

MOSAIC GOD-IDEA CONTRASTED WITH OTHER 
SYSTEMS : DUALISM. 

Socrates once said to his hearers, jestingly: "I cannot create 
ideas, but I will try to help you to do so; just as my mother 
the midwife, she no longer bears children, but she assists others 
in their labors." Let us begin with advancing the metaphysical 
ideas of other systems, which, by their contrast, will help to 
elucidate our own : "I am the Eternal, thy God," simply states 
that God exists, that he is the reality, not an ideal contrived by 
poets or priests, ''as the cunningly devised savior of this sickly 
world-scheme." 

No ! looking closely and intently at the fleeting and changeable 
character of the infinite number of bodies of this universe, from a 



MOSAIC GOD-IDEA CONTRASTED WITH OTHER SYSTEMS: 

137 
drifting leaflet to the huge sun-globe, we arrive at the conclusion 
that they are but apparent phenomena, and that their reality, 
numina, their eternal, intrinsic, never-changing essence is He, 
the Only One, the all-holy Being. So a great Jewish philoso- 
pher, much misunderstood by the vulgar, defined : "As the 
ocean is the reality, to the earnest beholder, whilst the ocean 
waves are but accidental, perishable and ephemeral, one swal- 
lowing up the other, and finally, are all absorbed by the deep, 
even such are all the visible, single bodies in existence, but tiny, 
fleeting shadows, perishable things, all coming from and sub- 
merging back into the divine Source, their origin." So the 
fisher-boy, in his skiff, cares only for the shore, the surface, the 
waves, the net with fish, his temporal catch; whilst the great 
navigator Columbus, or Vasco Di Gama, looking for discoveries, 
for new continents, seeks the grand, vast and boundless ocean 
as his object; even so looks man for food and shelter, whilst the 
philosopher seeks and finds but — Deity. 

*'I am the Eternal, thy God," God is One, not two. — Two Su- 
preme Principles are taught by Parseeism, the great world-religion 
of the Persians ; a mighty nation which, under Cyrus and Darius 
(540 A. C.) had erected the first world-empire, which soon much 
befriended the Jews, and which was, in many respects, akin to 
them and to Mosaism. Zoroaster, their teacher, had originally 
taught the Only One God, Ahura-Mazdao, who was one, spirit- 
ual, eternal, not embodied or represented by any image. Yet, 
later and gradually, the Magian priests admitted a dualistic 
theology. Ahura-Mazdao was the Only-One God of good and 
of light; and Angro Mainyus was the God of Evil and of dark- 
ness ; his eternal antagonist, the genius of inert nature and brute 
force, the devil. Both represented the two reverse sides of 
existence : mind and matter, good and evil, life and death, sum- 
mer and winter, day and night, joy and sorrow, virtue and vice, 
ever contending against each other. The aflinity and the theo- 
logical antagonism of Judaism and of Parseeism, are a striking 
analogy of present Judaism and Christianity. And their polemics 
too have their strong parallelism, they are assenting and dis- 
senting: So Is. 45, 1-8, discusses Parseeism': "Thus spake 
Ihvh to his annointed one, Cyrus, whom I hold by the hand, sub- 
duing nations under him.. .1 walk before thee. . .breaking down 
the gates of brass and the bolts of iron . . . That thou shalt know 



138 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

that I, Ihvh, the God of Israel, have called thee out by thy name, 
for the sake of My servant Jacob ... I am Ihvh, besides Me there 
are no other gods. . . That they shall know from East to West, 
that there is none other but Me, the Creator of light — and of 
darkness, who makes peace and creates evil, I, Ihvh, do all that ! 

Thus fraternizing with the Persians, calling their leader, Cyrus, 
by the august name of Messiah, he, nevertheless, and in the same 
strain, antagonizes and repudiates their dualistic God-concept, 
insisting upon "God-one of the Decalogue." Science and com- 
mon-sence corroborate monotheism. The two opposite phases in 
nature, light and darkness, pleasure and pain, life and death, etc., 
are but apparently antagonistic; really they are the sequels, con- 
dition and physical, absolute necessity of each other. Vice, tears 
and misfortune are but human, personal feelings and affects. In 
nature all is joy, harmony, light, happiness. There is no Princi- 
ple of Evil in nature. There is but Ihvh, good, Existence is 
good. 

UNITY AND TRINITY. 

Nearly all the ancient religions and mythologies had a trini- 
tarian aspect and basis. They all looked upon the supreme divine 
powers as consisting in a triad ; so in Egypt, Babylonia, Assyria, 
Phoenicia, Greece. So was especially Brahmanism. Hence came 
trinitarian, gentile christology, following that train of thought 
and formula ; amalgamating the triad of the Orient with the 
unitarianism of Judaea, it retained the essence of the latter within 
the formula of the former. Logically they clashed, but prac- 
tically they smoothened and prepared the way to conversion by 
compromise. By that amalgamation, however illogical, the an- 
cient Gentile nations and their several religions could fuse and 
merge easily into the new Christianity and at the same time be- 
stow upon its founder a divine authority, then absolutely neces- 
sary for its acceptance. As Lessing has remarked : ''The pot of 
brass desires to be lifted out of the fire with tongues of silver, in 
order to imagine itself of the same precious metal.''^ We come 
now to Brahmanism. There we see the trinitarian God- 
idea the clearest. Examining natural phenomena, the Hindu 
sages found things arising, developing and decaying; be born, 
live and die. These three salient stages of one existence, they 
subsumed, as the effects of three leading powers, a triune deity : 

iNathan the Wise, Lessing. 



UNITY AND TRINITY. 139 

Brahma, Wishnn and Sivan, hence the trinity of the o;odheacl. 
But looking closer into nature, we fail to find such three distinct 
stages or powers. We find no three abrupt stages, but eternal, 
gradual development. Science declares birth, growth and death as 
but developments, nominal, not real changes, aspects of existence, 
rings in a chain of ever continuing unfoldngs, without begin 
or end. Birth is preceded by the seed, long ago pre-existing, and 
death is not annihilation. The body dead, changes its appear- 
ance, its form, not its essence, it continues in other forms.^ What 
was, is and remains, but in other shapes. Ever is decomposition 
and recomposition going on. Even the living organism is ever 
eliminating and assimilating, daily dying and regenerating; we 
die and are rejuvenated at the same time. All in nature is ebb 
and flow, birth and death, at each moment. So, also, at each new 
birth the parent dies of¥ a little, and at each death some new life 
is sprouting forth from the grave. Nature is one grand reservoir, 
nothing there is lost or wasted. So are the dying autumn flowers ; 
so our dear ones in the grave. Birth, growth and death are all 
one process, uninterrupted, never ceasing, and all induced by 
one and same divine impulse : "Ihvh is one," not three ! 

Ancient Egypt had a triad-deity. Each of its dozen of prin- 
cipalities or nomes had its own triad, one deity represented under 
the aspect of three ; with its proper idols, its own priesthood, cult 
and temple; they were grandiloquently taught, under different 
pompous emiblems and names, yet each triad represented but one 
divinity, one idea of a threefold nature, as male, female and 
combination; or as father, mother and child; as positive and 
negative forces, or electricity or magnetism and their eftect ; or 
as Osiris, Isis and Horus, etc. Science and common-sense show 
the futility of such philosophems. Three or a hundred combined 
make no world-principles, or gods. So official Christianity, too, 
propounded trinity, but its founders did not. Jesus of Nazareth 
was a Jew of the Jews. He ever believed in God-One. He neither 
taught a triad in concrete or in abstract; least did he assume 
himself as a hypostasis and part of the trinity. Possibly he may 
have thought himself a descendant of David, a messiah, destined 
to lead and free the world from Roman oppression and idolatry. 
So the Caesarian government combined with the Herodian 



iMaimonides already guessed that: Guide, part I, p. 17. It is iden- 
tical witti the Mindu metempsychosis, applied to soul and body. 



140 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

princes and their high-priestly satellites and removed him as a 
possible or actual rebel. Thus neither Jesus nor the apostles 
taught trinity. They all were and remained, to the end of their 
lives, Jews and monotheists. It was Paul of Tarsus, a Jew with 
a twofold education, a Judaeo-rabinnical one, combined with a 
Graeco-Alexandrian one, who seriously took up and advanced 
the messianic claim, following a mystic Jewish-Qabbalistic doc- 
trine, that the Messiah, Mushiah, Christ is a primordial, super- 
natural, divine person, identifying that with the Graeco-Alexan- 
drine Logos, God's First Emanation. ^ Three centuries later, 
when the few, original Jew-Christians had been set aside and 
eliminated by the incoming overwhelming mass of converts, 
these, the Graeco-Gentile Christians, established trinity, first 
consisting of God-the-Father, Mary the goddess-mother and 
Christ, God-the-Son. The Council of Nicea (324 P. C), desir- 
ing to obliterate that polytheistic origin, changed that into : God- 
the-Father, God-the-Son and God-the-holy-Ghost. . .all the three 
to form one triune deity and formally combining polytheism and 
monotheism. Thus whilst Christianity officially teaches God- 
Three, in reality it means God-One. 

The late Franz Delitzsch, of Leipsic University, alluding to 
this fact, once asked me, in perfect good nature : "Why do you 
Jews find offense in Trinity, since you, too, have your Elohim, 
Ihvh, Shekhina, etc.? Don't you, too, mean different aspects of 
the one and the same God?^' ''Yes," I answered, ''if the masses 
were each a Franz Delitzsch, and fully, logically realized the 
meaning of the words ; if the official church would be so out- 
spoken as yourself; if it taught trinity to be but three names of 
God, phases, aspects, attributes, and plainly said so in the cate- 
chism. But it insists, officially, that they are three equally divine 
persons, sovereign each and individual, three equal, independent, 
supreme gods, each omnipotent, omnipresent, etc., still all three 
making One !" Passing over the logical incongruity, see the 
practical result : The masses neglect entirely the One God in 
Spirit, persecute the people of the Decalogue, and worship — the 
goddess-mother or the incarnated God-the-Son ! "I am the 
Eternal, thy God. . .Thou shalt have no other gods in My pres- 
ence.. .Thou shalt make unto thee no images, nor bow to, nor 
serve them." — that is entirely overlooked. And if you call atten- 
tion to it, you are — damned ! 



iSee Philosophy Gabbala, etc., on it. 



THE FOUR ELE:\1ENTS. POLYTHEISM. 141 

The Graeco-naturalistic philosophers taught the four elements. 
Assuming to find in each terrestrial body a composition of earth, 
water, fire and air, they claimed these to be the elements, the 
divine substances underlying nature. Chemistry has long ago 
proven this to be a fallacy ; they being no elements, but composites, 
each of them consisting of many sub-elements, viz. : molecules, 
atoms which we cannot decompose, but improved future chem- 
istry may. The scientific trend is towards the assumption of one 
single element or substance pervading the universe. Thus, chem- 
istry, as moral science, coincides with the Bible. 

Polytheism taught thirty thousand gods. Naive people, un- 
ripe thinkers and false priests, finding in physical nature and in 
human affairs so many conflicting forces, fire and water, storm 
and lightning and earthquake ; king, hero and conqueror ; mount, 
ocean and star, etc., they imagined each to be an independent 
power, omnipotent in its own sphere, gods. Science and com- 
mon-sense has long ago exploded this theory. They are bodies 
and agents derived from one center, rays of one central dynamis, 
all necessarily conspiring towards one grand aim, the harmonious 
universe, all governed by one Mind, which combines all wisdom, 
will and omnipotence. There are no several creations, no diverse 
dominions, and no conflicting world-forces. Storms, cataclysms 
and earthquakes are not caused by warring Cyclops and Titans. 
No, they are results of one central Power and those forces are 
but the agents of the universal harmony. Already the ancient, 
nominally polytheistic, true philosophers, saw that as through a 
veil, dimly. Some saw it almost clearly and distinctly, as 
Pythagorus, Plato, Aristotle, Marcus AureHus. They admitted 
the popular gods as a popular concession, understanding by that 
the subordinate forces and agents of the Central Power, one and 

unique. 

PANTHEISM. SPINOZA. 

Other philosophers, feeling the weakness of polytheistic sys- 
tems, contrived to hide and veil their human ignorance and 
invented a big, hollow word, pantheism : All is God, this bound- 
less, eternal universe is one compound, animated, forever self-ex- 
isting and self-governing huge clock. As our one body has many 
limbs and faculties, all tending to one object, its existence, life, 
endurance and gradual metamorphosis, even so is this world- 
clock: One huge animated machine, identical with its governor 
or machinist ; a storehouse of matter, ever impregnated with mind 



142 EXODUS, AIOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

or force, instinctively busy with unconscious self-control, all its 
parts contributing, as the wheels of the clock, to perfect harmony ; 
decay and renovation going on by inherent law, the plus there 
neutralized by the minus here; the ocean ever emptied and ever 
replenished by its own lakes and rivers. That is the universe, a 
machine without a machinist, with an automatic law, no lawgiver ! 
What is its proof? none ! What is really gained by such a theory? 
What can you make out of it? Do we by it, learn and know 
more? Does pantheism enlighten, explain? Is it not an empty^ 
sonorous word to hush up our ignorance? Or is it utilitarian? 
Ctii bono? For whose benefit is that doctrine advanced? Will 
man become wiser, more moral, more happy, more industrious 
by it? No! On the contrary, it is disastrous, it is pessimistic, it 
robs man of his innate buoyancy, hopefulness, joy in work, in 
his own creations. It robs him of his humane personality, dig- 
nity, responsibility, and reduces him to a tool in the huge, soulless 
clockwork, in the dead abyss of the universe.^ The Decalogue 
obviates all that. It teaches : God, as Mind, is the All-person- 
ality; and man is his dim reflex; hence, too, intelligent, personal, 
responsible, optimistic : "Increase, work, reduce and enjoy." 
(Gen., 1, 28.) The logician, the metaphysician may demur to 
this, but practical common-sense will approve : It improves man, 
and religion is a practical science, teaching ''what man should 
do and live by it" (III M., 18:5). The Bible says: Elohim 
created all, viz. : Mind was first, and Mind created matter ; it 
shapes matter, it vivifies, supports, directs and sanctifies matter. 
Here is a great factor, a noble lesson, a useful doctrine, a pov/er- 
ful stimulant to man's improvement and upbuilding. 

Spinoza did not teach such crude, material pantheism. As the 
great prophets of old, he was entirely wrapt up in the contem- 
plation of the Deity. He felt literally absorbed in the Godhead. 
His condition was Nirvana^ in both, body and Soul. So Shleier- 
macher styles him justly the "holy Spinoza." His life, his phil- 
osophy, his religion, his instincts were of one piece, as the 
branches with the Candelabrum.'^ He looked out, searched and de- 
scried God behind the veiling screen of nature. . .and felt himself, 
his fellow-men and fellow-creatures, earth and heaven inclusive, 
sunk in the bosom of the Supreme One. That One was All to 

1 Renouncing the God-belief, I feel as if in a mad-house, having lost 
my guide (Heine). 

2An Agadic interpretation. 



PANTHEISM. SPINOZA. 143 

him. He and the world were mere bubbles, shadows, the only 
reality was God. So he lived, practiced, dressed, conversed ^nd 
fed, the plainest ; as Hanina Ben Dossa, he carved out his weekly 
loaf of bread : this peace is for the Sabbath, this for Sunday, this 
for ]\Ionday, etc., and this for Friday. For him was happiness 
and life alone in contemplation, thinking, truth-seeking, truth as 
the seal of and the avenue to Deity, the only magnet of his souL 
As to the world, its aspirations and objects, its struggles, pas- 
sions, triumphs and vicissitudes, they all appeared to him no more 
important than the bubbles on the bright surface of the tempo- 
rarilv serene ocean ; or as the huge, angry waves around, whipped 
by the storms of winter; or by the whim of the contrary currents 
of men's passions, short-lived creatures, soon to be merged into 
the abyss of Theamat and swallowed up there, hence not worthy 
of the notice of the sage. This was Spinoza's view. The world 
was little by itself and nothing to him; so the One was All to 
him. And that is Spinoza's pantheism, to him really extreme 
Deism. The rabbis remember the ascetic Hanina Ben Dossa, "by 
whose merits the world existed and who needed but one measure 
of dry dates from the Sabbath to the Sabbath." (Tanith 24. b — 
Berachoth 61. h).^ That could well be said of the Hollandish 
recluse. 

Another fine Agadic saying is: ''The righteous (in paradise) 
dwell in glory, crown on head, absorbed in the beatitude of con- 
templating the Deity." This describes the beatitude of our same 
Hollandish sage. It is absurd to designate him as an infidel, a 
pantheist, atheist, apostate. The universe, to him, was but the 
frame, God was the real tableau. Less yet was he an atheist. He 
was an All-theist. Least of all was he an Apostate. He was an 
extreme monist. Still, and with all my admiration for this 
thinker and this character, I am no follower of his, nor would I 
advise anybody to adopt and follow his eagle's flight. I and 
you, reader, and most of us, might get giddy when climbing up 
to the top of that philosophical obelisk. His doctrine is too sub- 
lime to be reached, and can be so but by the greatest of intel- 
lects, as Lessing or Goethe, so they were not afraid of following 
him. Usual mortals should abstain. As you pilgrim to a pyra- 
mid, through sands and heat, and arriving at its base, you turn 



•n^^ 2^vb r\2\i^ 



144 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

Up your head to contemplate and admire its grand proportions, its 
architecture and subHme suggestions, but you are too prudent to 
cHmb up to its summit, from fear it may wear out your strength ; 
even so is Spinoza's philosophy. Study it, contemplate it, but 
do not adopt it. It surpasses your and my calibre. From its top 
you may well get the vertigo and tumble down into the mire of 
despair below. Still I say, confidently, he was no opponent of 
the Decalogue, he was an extreme and exaggerated One-Gpd 
believer. He saw nothing but the One ; there is the strength and 
the weakness of his system. The Mosaic God definition is for 
man, his is for philosophers. 

MOSES, FICHTE, SPINOZA, HEGEL, SCEPTICISM. 

Anochi Ihvh, I, God, am. God is conceived in Mosaism per- 
sonally, as the Supreme Being, not subsumed under or with the 
universe. His Will and his powers are immanent, pervade and 
transcend the world of matter. He is not limited by it; he is 
its extra-mundane and spontaneous Architect and Creator, the 
self-conscious Intellectus Activus, the Designer and Effector of 
all existence and all being; the author of physical nature with its 
laws and of the moral laws of man. 

The philosopher, Fichte, denied consciousness and personality 
to the Deity. The Deity, to him, was man's conscious reason and 
morality, or the Moral Order of the universe. That, of course, 
borders on atheism. Spinoza's God-idea, too, is not entirely 
above the same objection: ''The Deity's thought is creation. 
Thinking is God's constitutional and essential character, and that 
thinking is creation." Hence is He not the free, conscious, spon- 
taneous world-architect. He is the unconscious, impersonal, im- 
manent law and habitus of the universe. He is the natura 
naturans, creating nature, whose constitutional, necessary think- 
ing, brought forth the natura natiirata, created nature. Thus 
to Spinoza and to Fichte, as to the Qabbala and Vedanta, is God 
impersonal ; the unconscious Mind in the boundless space and 
infinite time, unknowable to man. Now, if there be no personal 
God, consciously dictating duty, right, reason, purity, truthful- 
ness, whence did man obtain all these axioms and categories of 
right-living. Whence comes the Moral Order of the universe 
and the Moral Conscience of man? And if even that would be 
thinkable in the external world, it would not be practicable in 



MOSES, FICHTE, SPINOZA, HEGEL, SCEPTICISM. 145 

human society; it would be inefficacious and inoperative upon 
man. Man must have a ''Categoric Imperative, 'Thou shall not 
kill, not be unchaste, not steal,' " dictated by a personal, conscious, 
all-powerful authority ; or he will follow his own wayward in- 
clinations. Therefore the Bible postulates a personal God, Source 
of all individuahty, self-consciousness and will-power. He is 
holy and dictates moral and rational duties to man, who is ra- 
tional, moral and responsible : "Ye shall be holy, for holy am I, 
your God."i That may be less philosophic, but it is cogent, prac- 
tically more effective, legislative. Hegel assumes the universe 
as autonomous, self-existing, rolling on its own intrinsic wheels, 
guided by its own immanent laws. He reminds of the divine 
chariot w^th its spontaneous, self-turning wheels and holy Hajoth 
of Ezekiel's vision (I, 1.), less its "mysterious personality hover- 
ing upon its firmament." That personality Hegel declines. To 
him God is personified thinking, conscious alone in the human 
brain. The human brain and its thinking is the highest revela- 
ton of the Godhead, everywhere else dormant. Now, if such 
vague speculations may be satisfactory to the theorist, it can not 
be so to the practical humanist and to the legislator. If there 
be no personal, absolute Guide and no independent, autonomous 
Intelligence in the universe^ whence does it come into the human 
brain ? Or is man thus apotheosized, and his thought, the Deity ? 
Is that not the most flagrant idolatry? Brain is but a cluster of 
ganglia, nerve tissue, but a tool, as any other muscle; how does 
that secrete and distill morality, intelligence ? The theist, indeed, 
not Hegel, gives us the answ^er, viz. : The Soul or Mind works 
it out, as the spider does the cobweb, the bee its honey, or best, 
as the musician elicits his music from the instrument. The music 
originally derived from the composer, fills the musician's mind, 
who brings it out by the instrumentality of the violin or piano. 
Even so duty, emanated from the Source of morality, is reflected 
in man's mind, which man realizes in his brain and his deeds. 
The soul derives its thoughts and categories from the universal 
divine Source, the ocean of wisdom. Thus, the sum of human 
goodness and intelligence is not God, as Hegel's scheme pro- 
pounds. No, that is a poor self-apotheosis ; it is, at best, but a 
ray emanated from the sun of Supreme benevolence and Intelli- 
gence to illumine our earthly twilight. The universe, no doubt, 
exhibits infinitely grander divine revelations than does the human 
brain. 

iIII M. 19.1. 



146 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

Scepticism, doubt despairs of all, of the senses and of reason, 
especially of all thinking and of all speculation: *'It is possible, 
theism is right, possibly polytheism, possibly pantheism, or even 
atheism; and since we are not perfectly sure and safe, hence is 
all thinking wasteful and useless !" This conclusion is totally 
incorrect ; that is to say that, since human reason can not fathom 
all, we should renounce all knowledge; drasticaly put, it means, 
since the lamp in my hand is not the sun, I should throw it away 
and walk in the dark ! Or, since my eyes ache, are dim or do 
not see all, I shall shut them forever. The right conclusion is: 
Let us use reason, lamp and eyes, and see as much as we can. 
And what we cannot, good-naturedly resign ourselves. The 
Bible does show us that: ''The unknowable belongs to God, the 
knowable is made for us and our children." (V. M., xxix:28.) 

GOD AND NATURE. 

Are God and nature identical ? Judaism decidedly replies : No ! 
God is creator and nature is created. Nature (natura, nasco) is 
the abstract name of the complex of all concrete things and their 
laws, existing in the infinite space. Nature means : All things 
born, or made. Hence when I ask: Who made the world? and 
am answered. Nature ! That is meaningless, tautology, an empty 
word to hide ignorance. That illustrates Goethe's remark: 
*'Just where ideas are lacking, there a word is at hand to take 
their place." The Bible teaches, "In the beginning God created 
heaven and earth," viz. : Mind brought forth nature. True, it 
states that only, and not also how creation came out. That is 
above our human comprehension. God and creation are equally 
unknowable to man. We see the universe, we conclude and 
reason out that God is. We cannot grasp the u^hat and the how 
of either. And since we cannot understand it, the Bible wisely 
abstains from attempting to explain it. But for all human pur- 
poses it suffices us to know, that: In the begin of time, "God 
created the heaven and the earth." . . And this involves a doc- 
trine which tallies best with human civilization. The schemes of 
old and modern philosophers may do for philosophers, not for 
practical legislators. Practically looked at, in what relation stands 
God to nature ? The rabbis say : "As creator to creature, as soul 



GOD AND NATURE. . i47 

to body, as thought to brain." Goethe's^ reply may be adduced too : 
"He stands behind the whirhng wheels of time and weaves 
(nature) his own garment divine." God is the Universal Mind, 
and nature his visible, majestic robe. Even so the Psalm 104.2. 
"He dons the light as His robe, and expands the heavens as his 
tapestry." The Qabbalistic^ philosopher interprets it in the same 
sense, in the name of R. Simon b. Yohai. 

Thus we have seen that moral science, common-sense and 
leading philosophers, ancient and modern, coincide with the Deca- 
logue and the Bible that God exists, rules and upholds all. And 
this God-belief is the corner-stone of the universe and also of 
himian civilization. It is the first doctrine of the Decalogue, ex- 
panding in : "Be holy, for I, your God, am holy (HI M., 19 :i). It 
is its logical syllogism: God-holy sanctifies man and all his rela- 
tions, those of the parent, consort and citizen; of duty, right and 
freedom. Whilst God-force means : man is an ape, a brute, with 
selfishness, war and exploitation. Hence are man's best interests 
bound up with the Hebraic Decalogue. 

POLYTHEISM AND ITS POLITY. Exodus, XX, 4. 

Jewish theologians usually count Exodus xx., 3 — 6, as the 
Second Commandment. It corroborates the First, enlarging and 
dw^elling upon it and showing its full import: "Thou shalt have 
no other gods in my presence, ''al penai/' or as Onkelos translates : 
besides Me^ Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven 
image or any likeness . . . Thou shalt not bow down to, nor worship 
them." Following the rabbis, Maimonides (Yad, Mada, Intro- 
duction) counts these verses as the first prohibiting laws of the 
six hundred and thirteen commandments of the Thora. They 
are subsumed to mean : "Not to mentally admit of any divine 
plurality ; not to tolerate any divine images or figures in relief or 
color ; not to offer them any manner of veneration ; and least, the 
one customary to their cult.^ "For I, Ihvh, thy God, am a zealous 
God, who visits the guilt of the fathers upon the children to the 
third and fourth generations of those who hate me, and bestows 



lEr steht hinter dem Webstuhl der Zeit, und wirket sein eigen le- 
bendiges Kleid. 

sphilosophy and Qabbala, Vol. II. 

3 Maimonides Yad, Mada, Introduction, subdivided further still the 
sentences. 

4Bar meni. 



148 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

grace on thousands of generations of those who love me and 
observe my commandments." 

We have above considered the great gift the Bible has con- 
ferred on mankind by the Decalogue, with its special message, its 
leading doctrine, that there is God, that divine Providence exists, 
that He is One, unity not plurality of Godhead; rejecting thus all 
mythology, with its host of divinities, its base superstitions, its 
mean priestcraft, usurpations and hypocrisy, its shameful, un- 
chaste practices and horrifying human sacrifices, its stupid, un- 
chaste idol-worship and monstrous mysteries, with idle supernatu- 
ralism, and gross naturalism, its miracles, necromancy, exploita- 
tion of the ignorant, apothesis of the worst passions and the 
worst rulers. All that was bound up and intimately connected 
with ancient polytheism, idolatry and false cults. Against that 
the chief effort of the Bible and the Decalogue in special, was 
directed. The latter prohibits it peremptorily and repeatedly, the 
entire Pentateuch emphasizing it again and again in a hundred 
modes, and the prophets made it as often the absorbing theme 
of their harangues and the chief object of their fiery denuncia- 
tions, as the crime against God and man ; representing it as the 
source of all corruptions, vices and misfortunes ; showing the 
practical importance of a right principle and the banefulness of 
a wrong one. We need but read history, describing the im- 
morality, superstition, wretchedness and abject sensuality of the 
masses, the effrontery, the overbearing and the hypocrisy of the 
priesthood; the horrors, the lasciviousness, the cruelty of their 
cults, representing the gods anxious for meat, drink, sensuality, 
hilarity and setting to man the example of immorality ; and, lastly, 
the rulers, the patricians, going hand in hand with the hierarchs, 
dictating the oracles and interpreting them to their own advan- 
tage. This gives us the cue and shows the reason why the 
Mosaic Legislator was so severe and intent upon extirpating that 
mean, polytheistic tinsel civilization, and teach the pure God-man- 
and morality-ideas. 

Closely examining this we see that Mosaism is intent more even 
upon the negative side than the positive one of religion ; it em- 
phasizes, accentuates and inculcates that besides the One God 
in Spirit, there are no gods and no divine genii ; that the heathen 
priesthood, with their so-called philosophies, mysteries, creeds, 
cults, ceremonies and tenets are false, fraudulent, surreptitious 



POLYTHEISM AND ITS POLITY. 149 

and abominable lies; that the Israelitish people shall shun them, 
abhor them, not tolerate their temples, images and cults, not 
even imitate their customs and habits, as heathen pernicious 
practices. Sternly it enjoins: "When in the land of the Amor- 
ites, Hitites, Khanaanites. . .thou shalt deny and reject them. . . 
thou shalt not bow down to their gods, not imitate their prac- 
tices and habits. Destroy them thoroughly and break down their 
stylae. . . Gradually I shall expell and exterminate them, until 
thou wilt occupy the land as thy inheritance. Little by little I shall 
drive them out and deliver them into thy power. . .Never make 
any alliance with them, nor v/ith their gods . . . They shall not dwell 
in thy land, lest they cause thee to rebel against and apostatize 
from Me, induce thee to worship their gods and become to thee 
a snare and a stumbling block." (Exod. xxiii., 23-33.) For 
that reason images of man, sun, moon and stars were forbidden. 
So were altars, idols, styles, sacred groves and heathen sacrifices. 
The severest penalties were enacted against image worship. Idol- 
atrous cities and tribes were to be destroyed root and stem. 
All communication and alliance between Israelites and heathens 
were broken off, and their customs rigidly differentiated. The 
monotheist should be distinguished even by dress, manners, food, 
etc., from the idolator, so as to prevent any assimilation or re- 
lapse. (Maimonides, Yad Mada. Hilehoth Akum III-XII. Yo- 
reh, Deah, 141, 178, 179, etc.) 

Indeed, considering the host of Biblical texts, vehemently and 
peremptorily prohibiting idolatry, we find out the real object of 
Mosaism.i It was rather negative than positive : "Be not 
superstitious, no idolator !" God requires obedience to the law 
(I Sam. 15:22), in preferm.ent to sacrifices and incense. 

The abrogation and expunction of such notions and custom^s 
hailing from Baal, Moloch, etc., cults, universally dominant su- 
perstitions, religious parasites, was the first great object of the 
lawgiver. Comparatively few are his positive commandments, 
and they are all inscribed on the tablets of the human heart, in 
experience, conscience, reason. To such prohibitions and enact- 
ments is consecrated the Decalogue and its expansion, Leviticus 
xix. 2. 



iMaimonid. Guide, III, 29. 



150 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

Around that as the inner nucleus, cluster the five Books of 
Moses ; which Thora again, had its enlargement and expounding, 
its adaptations and modifications, according to times and environ- 
ments, in the Mishna, the Talmud and the Casuists. These com- 
ment on the Thora, the Thora on the Decalogue, and the Deca- 
logue puts the chief stress on the abrogation and expurgation of 
the multitude of heathen forms and superstitions which were 
then taught in the name of the old heathen religions. 

Even so Maimonides (Guide III, 25) : To the heathen gods 
they sacrificed vermin, mice and creeping things, whilst the Thora 
teaches the only One God, who asks for nothing else but to love 
and fear him and obey his laws ; not any burdensome services or 
artificial piety. This is the highest divine service : ''Fear and 
love of God and of his laws."^ 

This remarkable chapter, XXIX, of Maimonides' Guide con- 
cludes as follows *'Our Thora, entirely, its root and center and 
pivot, tends to blot out those (Sabaean) notions, and expunges 
them from the hearts and from existence" : 'Their altars ye shall 
destroy and their sacred trees burn in fire, let their name perish. . . 
Repeated are these themes in many places, for this is the chief 
object, followed up by the entire Thora, as our sages have in- 
formed us in interpreting the verse : "What God has commanded 
you through Moses" they say : "This teaches that whosoever ac- 
knowledges idolatry, denies all the Thora, and whoever denies 
idolatry is tantamount to acknowledging the entire Sacred Writ. 
Ponder over this.^ 

The Thora prescribed (II M., 23, 7, etc.) but three yearly fes- 
tivals when the Israelites appear with their offerings at the na- 
tional Sanctuary. There shall be but one such temple in the 
entire land, symbolizing One God, one nation, one creed, and no 
multiple altars; the Bomos, hights, altars of city, house and 
country, were prohibited, as leading to superstition and idol- 
worship. The law ordained but one national temple for the 
entire people, with comparatively few daily offerings, and these 
were meant, not as food for God, but as an allowance to the 
priests and also to deter man from sin. It allowed no room, for 

-iDDn ^31 ,n:5D minn :)33 isidd T"y"3 riDt^r. ib:^^ ...n>N^v?on pi 



POLYTEHISM AND ITS POLITY. 151 

priest-craft, no mysteries, orgies and bacchanalia ; no unnatural, 
monastic abstinences and no sacred debaucheries, as in Phoenicia 
or Babylonia. The Ihvh service was short, plain and chaste. The 
law insisted upon honest dealings, veracity, purity, charity and 
very little upon ceremony, fasting, vows, castigations and 
outv/ard observances. The few ceremonials remaining, as 
sacrifices, fringes, phylactories, were, in view of the pervading 
symbolic customs of the times elsewhere, here retained as simple 
memorials of purity, or origin and history, or of Israel's alle- 
giance to Ihvh. Mosaism was thus a reaction against the super- 
stitious, obscene and cruel cults, the daily and hourly repeated 
gross practices of the heathens, with their never-ending temples, 
priests, services, observances, oracles, feasts and hosts of ceremo- 
nies, all calculated to enslave, terrorize, exploit and stultify the 
people, for the sole benefit of hierarch and king. Mosaism was 
a protest and a reform against polytheism and its polity. The 
Lawgiver thus put his chief stress and accent upon the extirpa- 
tion of idolatry, on the rejection of the interminable, stupid prac- 
tices and worships, as we find them hugely prevalent among the 
ancient nations. Such practices were mere contrivances, snares 
and stumbling blocks, alluring to superstition, ignorance and ex- 
ploitation by priest- and kingcraft; to cruelty, debasement and 
debauchery. Remember Jephta sacrificing his daughter; King 
Mesha, his son; the Moloch, Baal and Ashtoreth bloody and un- 
chaste cults. All the prophets identify idolatry with superstition, 
cruelty, infanticide and whoredom. Ezekiel, chap, xvi, is especially 
drastic on this. One would say that Mosaism was little afraid 
of infidelity or atheistic tendencies in the people. That there is 
a God, Creator and Providence is self-evident, to whom, readily 
enough, man takes refuge in the bitter struggle for existence. 
But that there is but one God, omnipresent and invisible; that 
the many heathen divinities are puerile notions and priestcraft, 
shadows or wrong conceptions of nature's forces, etc., such reas- 
onings the ignorant do not see so plainly, therefore are they 
much inclined towards the assumption of as many gods as single 
powers. And there will ever be plenty of cunning men to exploit 
the ignorant, cater to such false notions and create pseudo-priest- 
hoods, cults, superstitions and immoralities. Against such abuses 
the Mosaic lawgiver turned all his attention and energy, threat- 
ening with the severest punishments, private and national, the 



IS2 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

greatest of crimes, polytheism, idolatry. Everywhere else, by di- 
vine behest, he recommends mercy, toleration, yea, sympathy for 
the stranger, the non-Israelite, even the Edomite and the Egyp- 
tian. 'Xove him as thyself," "for strangers ye were in his land." 
Such is Mosaic sympathy. 

Elsewhere^ we have seen at large the broad, Hberal, hu- 
manitarian spirit pervading the Mosaic laws and polity. We 
need not search far. In Exodus, xxii, 20, we read: "A 
stranger thou shalt not over-reach or oppress, for strangers 
you were in Egypt — (xxiii, 9:13)... The Stranger thou shalt 
not oppress. Ye know how he feels, ye were strangers in 
Egypt . . . On the Seventh day shall recuperate thy slave and thy 
stranger — (V M, 24..). Never wrong thy laborer, whether 
thy brother or a stranger ... Pay him before sunset, for he is 
poor and looks up to thee for his support ... Do not bend the right 
of the stranger, the widow and the orphan. . . When thou reapest 
thy fields, remember the stranger, the orphan and the widow. . . 
Remember, thou hast been a slave in Egypt." Here are verses, 
and such you find by the hundreds in the Pentateuch, which you 
will rarely meet in ancient, yea, in modern legislations. Nativism, 
the social distemper of even our present twentieth century times, 
had no room with Moses. Why then is he so exceptionally se- 
vere towards the clans and tribes of Khanaan? But one thing 
explains this : his abomination of their vices and the fear of assimi- 
lation. His severity and uncompromising hostility to the native 
Khanaanites are not foreigner-hatred, not modern race prejudice, 
not selfishness dubbed as patriotism : "Judaea for Judaeans." 
No, it is explained only on the score of infection and contagion, 
the fear of the allurements of the seductive idolatry, debauchery 
and immorality of the natives. The history of the manners, prac- 
tices and cruelties of even the most enlightened nations of an- 
tiquity, proves that his misgivings were well founded, he aimed 
at a cordon, a quarantine against physical, mental and moral 
contagion. 



1 Spirit of the Biblical Legislation. 



THE LAW OF HEREDITY AND ENTAIL. ^Si 

(Exodus, XX, 5.). "Thou shalt not bow down to, nor worship 
them (the false gods), for I am a zealous God, visiting the guilt 
of the fathers upon the children, to the third and the fourth 
generations of those (lawbreakers) who hate Ale, and am 
gracious to thousands (of generations) of those who love Me 
and keep Aly commandments." After the foregoing remarks, 
the reader will easily grasp this verse. The Lawgiver must hold 
up the severest punishment for the greatest of crimes, idolatry, 
even to the third and fourth generations. We find this fre- 
quently repeated: II AI., xxxiv, 7 — IV M., xiv, 18, etc. Many 
who overlooked that, found our text exceedingly severe, yea, 
unbecoming the justice and micrcifulness of the Supreme Arbiter: 
"Consider, they say, the God of love of Christianity, and the God 
of vengeance of Mosaism; the one forgives the actual, repentant 
sinner, the other entails and avenges the sins even upon the inno- 
cent children, to the third and fourth generations ; there is a 
god of mercy and here a God of v/rath! Other Christian theo- 
logians, remembering that an attack upon the Pentateuch, the 
Old Testament, profoundly shakes the New Testament too, reared 
upon that basis, try to explain our text by their Christian, Paul- 
inian doctrine of original sin ; they say that here is alluded to that, 
to the sin of Adam and Eve, their disobedience in Paradise, the 
divine ire enkindled thereon, and the curse entailed upon their 
entire posterity. The Original Sin is at the bottom of this harsh 
verse." But this mystical, theological, oriental, etc., explanation 
does not explain at all. Our next text says: "God visits (remem- 
bers) the guilt to the third and fourth generations — not further, 
and is gracious to thousands of those who keep the divine com- 
mandments." That means : Stern justice. Whilst Original Sin 
is a diabolic injustice. It involves a curse forever — for right- 
eous and unrighteous alike. Hence we are constrained to seek 
for another clue to our text than the God of wrath and the 
''Original Sin." What is that clue? Examining this nucleus of 
Mosaic legislation, as in this very pericope of Mishpatim (II i\I., 
chap. 20-24) v/e do not find here any trace of an entail of crinie to 
the descendants of the criminal. The criminal, alone, is to bear his 
punishment — crime and punishment are personal ; never is his fam- 
ily involved therein. In the same spirit the Talmud excludes any tes- 
timony of relatives for or against near kin (B. Sanhedrin 27. b). 



154 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

Whilst we know well that in ancient Gentile legislations such a 
responsibility is most salient. The entire family was held as 
collateral to the perpetrator. That was a recognzed tenet in 
criminal and political jurisprudence, even to be saliently found in 
the Codes of Hammurabi, Persia, Greece, Rome and Germany. 
But more, V M., xxiv, 16, expressly declares : "The fathers 
shall not die for their children, nor the children for their fathers ; 
every one shall suffer for his own guilt." And this the Talmud 
finely stretches to mean even that no relatives shall ever be 
called upon to witness against his kin. Both Scripture and 
Talmud, teach just and humane, legal axioms, towering far above 
the codices of entire antiquity. Now is not that apparently in 
flagrant contradiction to ''He punishes the guilt of the fathers to 
the third and fourth generations"? To elucidate this theme, let 
us look to stern facts in real nature. Do the defects and qualities 
of parents descend to their posterity? Are innate propensities 
hereditary, entailed upon the descendants? Is there any such a 
natural family-vendetta, such a blood-solidarity? Interrogating 
closely the facts of physiology, biology, botany, zoology, sociol- 
ogy, with statistics in hand, it appears that the law of heredity 
and entail is such an iron rule, incontestable, undeniable, for good 
and for bad. The virtues and the vices, the strong and the weak 
features of the parents do descend upon the offspring. The race, 
family and parental influence is powerful upon the posterity. 
Nay, some claim it alone powerful, even all-powerful ; that all 
the properties and characteristics of the offspring are to be sought 
and found in the seed, the root, the sires. Darwin believes to 
have shown that exceptional traits and properties of one bird, if 
paired carefully and diligently kept up with its likes, avoiding 
any cross-breeding, will reproduce and perpetuate the same char- 
acteristics in the offspring, to such an extent as, in the course of 
time, to develop a new genus. And Darwin's successors believe 
even that this proper pairing alone is sufficient to account for the 
diverse species and races differentiated, by such selection, from 
one common stock of ancestors, far different from their late 
descendants. Now passing from physical peculiarities entailed 
by descent, to mental and moral ones, we find them less sharply 
defined, because more complicated, still showing the law of entail. 
Do we not distinguish strong, alert, spirited races and stocks 
from weak, lazy and stupid ones? Are not drunkenness and 



THE LAW OF HEREDITY AND ENTAIL. 155 

lasciviousness, just as bad sight, hearing, breathing, etc., as 
melancholy, cruelty and madness to be retraced to the parents? 
Whilst sobriety, healthy senses, good nature and cheerfulness, 
mentality, sharpness and wit are the same, to a certain extent, 
entailed by the sire upon the young. Certain like dispositions 
of the body induce corresponding moral and mental ones in the 
offspring. Thus with the conception, with the germ, the parent 
transmits his bodily and his ethical predispositions, defects and 
perfections, vices and virtues, bad and good qualifications. This 
is the law of heredity, the influence of entail. Now, the human 
judge can not peep behind the curtains of creation, therefore he 
has no right to excuse or to inculpate anyone on the score of 
heredity. Hence the positive maxim of Mosaism : "The parents 
shall not suffer for the children, nor these for the parents ; every 
one is to bear the punishment of one's own short-comings." But 
in nature, in God's own realm, we do find that law of universal 
solidarity, of family and racial responsibility. The human judge 
must leave that out from his testimony : God, the Lord of na- 
ture, takes it well into his account. Hence our text : "God visits, 
by entail, the sins of the parents upon their children." This 
is an inexorable axiom. The young are nothing else but the 
renovated parents, but the developmxcnt of the seed, hence they 
suffer for or enjoy of the parental advantages and disadvantages, 
just as an apple savors of the root and the tree it is plucked 
from, for good and for bad. 

This law of descent and entail has but recently been discovered. 
It is the well known new discovery by Darwin, in his book on 
the "Descent of Man/' showing up heredity in nature, that the 
peculiarities, proclivities and bents, good or bad, go down to 
posterity and would be forever continued, if not mitigated and 
even annulled by cross-fertilization and propagation from an- 
other stock, which destroys the original drift of nature. Now 
this law of heredity we find in the Ten Commandments. What 
our naturalists but half interview, and only since yesterday, the 
Mosaic Lawgiver revealed thousands of years ago, viz. : that 
the virtues and vices of the root are to be found in the tree, 
blossom and fruit. We have seen above that the Hindu philoso- 
phers also half-guessed this stern law of universal solidarity of 
man's race, yea, they claim, of all creatures. This may even be 
the philosophical background of the doctrine of original sin, 



156 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

eighteen centuries ago, propounded by Paul from East-Asian 
sources and grafted upon Christianity : The v/eakness of the 
race clings eternally to each member thereof. But he took it 
one-sided, pessimistically. In truth, the original virtues, too, of 
the race adhere to the offspring. The offspring is simply a repro- 
duction, a regeneration of the sire, for good and for evil, physi- 
cally and morally. The Hindu explains by this the Origin of 
Evil; Paul calls it, the Original Sin; in reality it is the original 
design of Providence. It is the habitus of existence, the working 
economy of nature, the bodily and ethical continuity, the immor- 
tality of the race. Everything in the parents is reproduced in the 
offspring, which is sim.ply a rejuvenation of the sires in every 
sense, good and bad, and possibly the good seeds are conditioned 
by the bad ones. 

Long before Darwin and other modern naturalists, Moses and 
the prophets, all, have recognized the import of the race and its 
influence upon its individual members. The holy seed, Zera 
qodesh, is again and again accentuated in the Bible as of para- 
mount importance. We are apt to think this a notion of prejudice 
and racial self-complacency. It may be solid acquired experi- 
ence. The Greek and the Roman world, too, termed all other 
nations, barbarian; but later this was deemed mere prejudice, 
derived from overweaned selfishness;. Now come our most 
modern naturalists and stolidly emphasize, yea, exaggerate its 
importance. Mosaism holds the middle course. Race is impor- 
tant, but it is not alone important. Education and principle are 
even more important. It rejects the Khanaanites, not on account 
of race, but of idolatry, inchastity. 

BIBLICAL OPTIMISM. 

Behold the moderation of the optimism of the Mosaic Law- 
giver. Contemplating the evident and uninterrupted solidarity 
of the racial units in nature, and stating the severe fact that: 
*'God avenges the sins of the fathers upon the children," he 
qualifies that : 'To the third and fourth generation" — no further. 
*'But he bestows grace to a thousand generations of those who 
keep the divine Law." Here is the Mosaic serene outlook, its 
optimism, the hopefulness and buoyancy characteristic of the 
monotheistic viewpoint. Vice and guilt are to be traced down 
to the third and fourth generations, then they are eliminated, 



BIBLICAL OPTIMISM. 157 

self-clestroying. Virtue, the good, ever increases and is entailed 
upon the descendants to a thousand generations, i. e., Uves 
forever. 

Evil is self-consuming, the good is and remains perpetually. 
This is inherent in the very being of the good and the bad. They 
are primordially so constituted that the good is permanent and 
propagating, the bad is barren and finally decays. It has its 
effects, goes on for a w^hile, and if not corrected and eliminted, it 
destroys, as a virus, or cancer, the body on which it festers. It 
dies or it kills, but it does not stay. This is deep in the economy 
of providential nature. In conformity with the biblical view, this 
is represented, not as a dead law, but as the living law, the be- 
nignity of the law (II M., xxxiv., 6) : "Ihvh, IlrJh, God of love 
and grace, long-suffering, merciful and truthful, reserving His 
grace to thousands (of generations), patient of sin and rebellion, 
not cleansing the unclean (sin must be atoned and not gratui- 
tously remitted), visiting the guilt of the sires upon the descend- 
ants, to the third and fourth generations." It is admirable how 

the Lawgiver reconciles the justice of God with His mercy : 
With a deep psychological insight, he penetrates the secret work- 
ings of nature, which is forbearing yet exact, patient yet inex- 
orable, reproducing that immutable law as primordially abiding in 
God, long-suffering yet avenging wrong, misericordious, yet 
strictly just, therefore punishing evil for three to four genera- 
tions, but rewarding virtue to a thousand — for ever and aye ! 

And this too we m.ay verify in fact. The gangrene of vice 
goes on but for one, two, or three generations, during w^hich it 
miust be eliminated or it destroys the individuals infected by it. 
It is killed or it kills. Children of vicious parents must miake an 
effort, expel and eradicate the fatal propensity ; or, if they yield, it 
increases in virulence and destroys themselves. Heredity is the 
natural bent. As in a , dangerous declivity we must make an 
effort and stop, or we are hurried down the precipice and dashed 
to pieces ; even so, our vices ; if not stopped, they destroy posterity, 
and the family or race becomes extinct. Hence our text : "A^ice 
goes down to the third and fourth generations." Only those ful- 
filling the divine laws of their own nature, will stay. Vice anni- 
hilates itself, virtue alone is perpetual : Here is the monotheistic 
optimism: God is just, but merciful. His universe is guided by 



158 RABBIS ON THAT 

both, justice and mercy.^ The Decalogue and the thirteen divine 
attributes^ teach it ahke, illustrating the lesson : Parents, beware 
of evil propensities ; they harm you, the individual and the 

posterity. 

In an ingenious parallel way, the rabbis discuss our theme (B, 
Sanhedrin 27. b) : "We read (V M., xxiv, 16) : "The fathers 
shall not die for their children," etc. Wherefore this repetition. . 
since we know that (Ibid.) : ''Everyone dies by his own sin"? 
And they interpret circuitously : "That means, that parents should 
not die by the testimony of their children (the testimony by and 
against one's near relatives). But is written (Ibid). "He 
visits the guilt of the fathers upon the children"? That takes 
place when the children persist in the bad habits of the fathers . . . 
for it is said : ''Each dies by his own sin" — The children are 
punished for their sire's sins, only then, when fatally propagating 
them". . .So it is written (III M., xxvi., 37) : "They shall stum- 
ble each through his brother," that means, through the bad ex- 
ample of his brother, because men are responsible for each other, 
since they should have forewarned them and they did not." — The 
rabbis try to conciliate here the apparently contradictory verses, 
by the ingenious suggestion of the (Mitschuld) competitive, cum- 
ulative guilt and by the mutual solidarity of the members of the 
same society. Naturally, the bent for the weakness of the par- 
ents is entailed upon us. But we are not compelled to follow 
such inclinations ; we are morally, psychically free, we can and 
should resist them, and resisting we shall vanquish them. When 
lazily yielding to the fatal proclivity, we double its virulence and 
it fiercely overpowers us, until, at last, it destroys our sinful pos- 
terity. This ingenious way of reconciling the apparently con- 
tradictory verses, shows that the rabbis guessed part of present 
natural science and social science, the import of race or heredi- 
tary influence and men's mutual responsibility. The law of 
heredity and natural entail makes the naturalist a fatalist and 
pessimist, lazily giving up the battle before it is fought. If all 
in the offspring comes from the sire, if all of the parent goes 



iSee Maimonides Guide, III part, 52, end, commenting on the verse: 
"I am doing merc5% justice and love on earth," and showing con- 
clusively that, practically and theoretically, a priori and a posteriori, 
Providence rules in love, mercy and justice. 

2Exod. 34.6, the thirteen divine attributes or midoth. 



RABBIS ON THAT. i59 

down to the child, wherefore should the young generation work, 
fight, cultivate, strive for good and react against evil inclina- 
tions ? Such reasoning is fatalism, viz. : we are what we are, 
born to and for it ; no use struggling against mighty nature ; 
indeed, as little as struggling against the lightning. That is 
vis major. The best is to submit with stolid resignation ; for we 
can neither improve nor spoil what is once rooted in us ! That 
is oriental fatahsm : But the Bible rejects that (V. M., ii and 30). 
"Behold, I have placed before thee life and good, death and 
evil : choose !" How then shall we mediate in the fatal trend 
of the innate impulses of hereditary entail, and the spontaneous 
choice of the truly good? By the plenary exercises of our hu- 
mane autonomy, by our free, strong volition in that limited 
margin as the benign Creator has allowed us. Limited as this 
our free will is, it is sufficient to allow us a free selection be- 
tween right and wrong. And this freedom will be confirmed 
by our experience. No doubt the nature of our parents is deeply 
implanted in ours : But are we for that its slaves ? Can w^e not 
react, improve, correct, better it ? By all means ! Nature is 
powerful, but not all-powerful upon man. We can react and 
reform, if we will. Look to facts : Are all the virtues of the 
sire descending upon the offspring? Do we not daily see excel- 
lent parents of w^orthless children, and a fine issue from mean 
sires? Are the children of great fathers ever great? By no 
means ! Very often the very contrary takes place. Genius is rarely 
hereditary. How, then, can we reconcile the law of heredity 
with our daily experience ? The answer is : Nature works by 
multiple channels and factors, not by simple ones. We are such 
or such, not by one reason and cause, but by a hundred. We 
are good or bad, noble or mean, ignorant or learned, strong or 
wxak, rich or poor for many reasons. Each cause separately 
contributed to the result. Often even these many factors run 
in contrary directions, for and against, they cross or corroborate, 
annul or assist each other, counterbalance and cancel, or dupli- 
cate and increase their respective influences. Only the balance 
of power remains, the residue after the counter-effort is de- 
ducted. Hence comes the difficulty to clearly show each cause 
of each effect, because there are many effects of many crossings 
causes. There are some apparent causes, but many secret ones 
intervene, cancel, modify, change and thus entangle the problem. 



i6o EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

No doubt the parents have great influence, but climate, food, 
education, surroundings, example, habits, personal tastes else- 
where contracted, change, modify and, not seldom, annul the 
home influence with the original bent. A practically successful 
father, will be imntated by his children ; a luckless one neglected, 
and thus his profession, views and tastes, respectively, embraced 
or discarded. 

HISTORY SHO¥/S FREE WILL. 

Abimelech was so unlike his father, Gideon. Pious Eli's sons 
were abominably wicked. The sons of the popular prophet and 
ruler, Samuel, were abhorred and shunned by the people. How 
unlike was the learned and effeminate Solomon to his father, 
the enthusiastic, pious and warlike David? And how unlike to 
either v/ere their progeny? Mathatias Hasmonoy and his five 
valiant sons easily showed the identity of their stock; but their 
successors degenerated, even to mediocrity. Antipater and his 
sons, Phasael and Herod, appear great in comparison to the later 
Maccabean princes and their ovvu as well as their hybrid pos- 
terity. Alexander of Macedonia wept at the victories of his 
father, Philip, ''leaving nothing for him to accomplish." Still 
room was left for him to conquer the Persian world-empire. But 
his premonition was verified, his mother and children, his dynasty 
and house all soon perished ignominiously. Caesar and Augustus 
were great, yet degeneration began even with Tiberius. A'es- 
pasian and Titus were followed by the contemptible Domitian, 
Hiero of Syracuse by the despicable Hieronymus (200 A. C), 
proving the same theory of degeneration after strong parents. 
The Frank, Pepin of Herestal, Charles Martel and Charlemagne 
showed up the rare example of three generations of great men; 
but their posterity, still masters of the terrestrial globe, greatly 
degenerated. Only one Bourbon, Henry IV., was great, and 
only one Napoleon Bonaparte. None of their posterity came up 
to the sire. That seems well to be the rule in psychology and in 
history: Great men have rarely great, bodily successors, as if 
God deprecated an aristocracy of genius. The decay begins first 
morally, next mentally, last physically, the race becomes extinct. 
Too much greatness, success, applause, adulation and luxurious- 
ness, spoil, overwean, corrupt and at last destroy. The virtues 
and energies of the fathers are obliterated and lost, their vices 



HISTORY SHOWS FREE WILL. i6i 

multiply, overgrow and stifle them. Why then this contra- 
diction? The law of heredity, physically, and the parallel the law 
of degeneracy, ethically and mentally? To all appearances, be- 
cause physical, psychical, ethical, educational and sociological 
laws, too, are here at work; hence a complication of influences, 
pro and contrary, resulting from diverse crossing and cumula- 
tive factors which we can not retrace and disentangle. Not only 
parents form the mental and ethical idyosyncrasy of their child, 
but a hundred factors besides, and these complex causes have 
their complex effects. So history tells us the fact that Domitian 
v.-as a Flavian^ but not the causes why he was so dissimilar to 
his father and his brother — the Flavians. In fact, it is very hard 
for children of great men not to appear in history as inferior to 
their sires. Already the close neighborhood and the challenging 
comparison are dangerous. . . It is for this that Alexander wept 
at the victories of his father. The fate of his children and 
dynasty proved the correctness of his misgivings, incorrect only 
by a single generation. Again, great men are called forth mostly 
by extraordinary environments, opportunities and efforts ; and these 
are usually wanting to their children. These lack the opportunity, 
the stimulus and the noble ambition. They lazily rest upon the 
laurels of the fathers. For them there is no poverty and want, 
no detractions, and no ambition to urge them on, as happily their 
great predecessors had. But they have flatterers, debauchery and 
luxuriance to effeminate and weaken them. Above all, they lack 
the historical, social and political opportunity. Not every day 
needs the world great men, and v/hen they still come, they are in 
the way and ostracised, as in Greece. Their father has done all 
and nothing is left for them to do. Their father worked and 
acquired ; they enjoy and waste ; small, rich children of a great, 
poor father ! The sire's virtues and qualities, his health, frugality, 
self-restraint, rapid, solid work^ make-shift, inventiveness, self- 
reliance, quick perception, initiative, enthusiasm, emulation, elas- 
ticity, self-sacrifice, wall-power, noble striving, all that is mostly 
lost to the easy-going offspring. Their atmosphere is quite an- 
other, surfeit and luxuriance and effiminacy ! In such a soil those 
virtues do as little thrive as oranges in Iceland. Whilst all the 
ancestor's native weaknesses, frailties, vices, ever commensurate 
with his virtues, but restrained, luckily, and held in the back- 
ground, in abeyance, by his wide-awake opponents, find their 



i62 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

fell and fatal outlet in the present, altered situation, and rich, 
tempting environments. The father's sins are thus abundantly en- 
tailed upon the poor and denuded, spoiled and over-lucky children. 
Hence the law of entail has its exceptions. No fatalism and no 
despairing misgivings. There is such a law, but there are many 
others crossing it, which cancel each other and leave room for 
free-will and effort. Birth, seed and root are much, but not all. 
The parents' good and bad qualities are in germ deposited in the 
temper of the child. But there are other factors, too, at play. 
Now choose, cultivate and inaugurate the virtues, restrain and 
uproot the vices. These will dwindle and disappear within three 
to four generations; while the bright sides wnW be strengthened 
and increased and bring out a prosperous race. The gradual im- 
provement of the human kind proves the correctness of this view, 
hinted at in our texts, Biblical and rabbinical. . . No fatalism thus ! 
There is inclination, but not compulsion to follow the bent of 
heredity. Will-power, good habits, precepts, examples and prin- 
ciples will correct bad seed. The Bible claims that within the 
limits of the universal law, of primordial necessity, man enjoys 
a certain margin of free will and liberty, and that margin is suffi- 
cient to choose one's course and be master of one's own fate ; and 
human consciousness corroborates this belief in our freedom of 
will.i 

THIRD COMMANDMENT. THE OATH. 

The Third Commandment solemnly completes and closes the 
first part of the Decalogue : ''Thou shalt not utter the name of 
Ihvhy thy God, falsely, for Ihvh will not let him go unpunished 
who will utter His name falsely. ^ In primitive times, honest, 
naive, unsophisticated man invoked the holy name out of venera- 
tion and piety, or to affirm and aver claims unproven, by an 
appeal to the Deity, calling on it to witness to the truthfulness of 
his affirmation. No doubt, as custom gradually makes law, an 
oath, an attest by the Deity, soon Vv^as admitted as a semi-legal 
proof and a juridical means in litigation for settling contestations. 
This custom and this law we find among all ancient nations. The 
laws of Hammurabi, of the Roman and the Greek Codes use 
such. The plain expression of our text shows it as an acknowl- 

iSee Maimonides Yad Mada, on this theme. 

{<"it^'^ elsewhere '^p^ 2 



THIRD COMMANDMENT. THE OATH. 163 

edged mode of proving claims. This gave rise to different 
modes of using and abusing the divine name in common inter- 
course. One abused it on vain and frivolous occasions by idle 
swearing; another in blasphemous, boisterous, inaccurate affirma- 
tions; then in averring by it actual falsehoods, telling lies and 
hypocritically calling God to witness to them; finally came the 
legal and juridical oath to settle contests of litigants. The Third 
Commandment solemnly warns against these several modes of 
abusing the hallowed name of the Deity. It does not prohibit its 
honest uses. It desires only to spare and limit it to rare, truthful, 
judicial and important occasions, as a means to discover unproven 
truth. The word Shov covers this. At first, it means: vain; 
next, frivolous, uncalled for; finally, falsely. "Do not bear, 
or utter, the divine Name, in any of these ways ; reserve it for 
veracious, solemn and weighty opportunities, to certify and at- 
test honest affirmations, for God will not let go unpunished him 
who will abuse of His holy name." As the oath was and is used 
in cases not possible to prove otherwise, or not easily provable, 
so the lawgiver forewarns that perjury will be punished by God 
who, omniscient, ever knows the hidden facts.. .Thus the oath 
seem.s to have been extensively used and misused at all times, as 
a pious invocation, as an idle prattling, as a vulgar vociferation, 
as an honest affirmation, and as a legal testimony, a judicial proof 
before the courts of jiistice. So III M., 19 :13 ordains : "Ye 
shall not swear falsely by My name." As a legal proof it is men- 
tioned in III M., v., 1, 22, 23— IV M., v., 19— V M. xxii. 9 10 etc. 
It ordains to swear by God's name in V M. vi., 13-15. Whilst 
swearing by that of other gods is a heinous crim.e, accounted as 
idolatry and warned against by all the prophets. The custom pre- 
vails to this day: "By God!" "Herr Ye!" "By Mohammed!" 
Such is the tenacity of inherited views and habits ; man will con- 
tinue lying and perjuring. 

In case of perjury the law ordaineth public confession, resti- 
tution of the damage with a fifth part over and above it, and the 
offering of a sacrifice in the Temple (III M., v., 22).. .It is ex- 
tensively treated by Philo. De Decal., 756; and in the entire 
Babylonian treatise Shebuoth. There, page 39a, it is said that 
at. the proclamation of that Third Commandment the entire world 
trembled, in consciousness of its transgression. The Talmud 
admits the oath as a half-proof, and only in absence of witnesses. 



i64 EXODUS. MOSES AXD THE DECALOGUE. 

The claimant has the burden of the proof. ^ It divides it in : 
Firstly: idle, meaningless, vain swearing, SJicbiiatJi Bitui; second: 
frivolous lying with unholy swearing, SJicbuatJi Slioz' or Shaker; 
thirdly: affirmation of a claim and honest entrusting, Shcbuath 
piqudin : fourthly: the oath of testimony, averration before a 
court of justice, SJicbuath Eduth? See ^laimonides Yad, ^I. 
Th, Hilchoth. Shebuoth I. and XL, 1, etc.— B. Shebuoth '29b. in- 
flicts the piniishment of 30 stripes (^malquth") upon wilful perjury. 
Cicero (Leges. II, 9) as also Homer frequently mention perjury 
to be punished by the Gods, Zeus himself being the guardian of 
oaths and avenger of perjury. 

Following the Hebraic Bible and ancient custom, modem legis- 
lation admits often the testimony of an oath at court, but only 
half-heartedly, correctly feeling that parties in litigation do not 
shrink from invokng God's name in vain, yea even in flagrant de- 
fiance of the truth. So, unfortunately, the v%itnesses of both the 
litigants are sworn in before giving testimony, each side claiming 
facts diametrically opposite to one another, one of them necessarily 
lying ! The Agada already was fully aware of that and dissuaded 
from going to law as begfuiling into perjury.^ When at eighteen 
years of age my guardian swore away my inheritance, holding a 
scroll of the Law in both his anns. one of the bystanders, knowing 
the facts, sarcastically remarked to him : *'What an excellent 
Thora? Is it not? You owed that money, now you owe no 
longer! — It would be time the legal oath should be abolished 
altogether from a judicious court. The judge knows, people at 
litigation lie. Still the mummery, the blasphemy, the impudent 
fraud goes on and niins all conscience and remorse. If the con- 
testants hide the truth without an oath, the oath, with the Bible 
in hands, will not make them reveal it. Our modern legislators 
should mind the Third Commandment : ''Bear not the name of 
God in vain." The legal oath should be abolished, it proves 
nothing but frivolitv. 



nny ni'iir ,xnp^^ nm** .s'l- rrzi" .v::*2 nyizi'* - 

"So Jesus dissuaded from going to law and any manner of oatb» 
that was Agadic, Essenian ethics and psychologically perfectly true. 



Study F.— THE SABBATH OF THE DECALOGUE 165 

The Fourth Commandment of the Decalogue is (H M., xx., 9) : 
"Remember the Sabbath-day to sanctify it. Six days shalt thou 
labor and do all thy work, but the Seventh day is a rest to Ihvh, 
thy God. Thou shalt not do any work ; thou and thy son and thy 
daughter, thy male and female slave, thy cattle and the stranger 
within thy gates, for within six days Ihvh has made heaven and 
earth, the sea and all in them, and rested on the seventh day. 
Therefore Ihvh blessed the Sabbath day and sanctified it." The 
closing verses apparently, refer to Genesis ii., 1-4 : ''On the 
seventh day Elohim had completed his work and he rested on the 
seventh day, wherefore he blessed and sanctified it." V M., v., 
12-15, repeats with some change :^ Observe the Sabbath day to 
sanctify it, as Ihvh, thy God, has bidden thee"... that thy male 
and female slave may rest as thyself. And thou shalt remember 
that a slave thou hast been in Egypt and Ihvh has brought thee out 
from there with a mighty arm, "therefore He bade thee to observe 
the Sabbath day." Whilst II M., xxiii., 12, condenses : "During 
six days thou shalt perform thy labors and on the seventh day 
thou shalt rest, that thy ox and thy ass may rest, and that the 
son of thy female slave and the stranger may recuperate." Here 
are the leading texts concerning the Sabbath, which are most nu- 
merous in the Pentateuch, the Prophets and the Hagiographers. 
They are repeated again and again, nearly as often as the para- 
mount doctrine of the Unity and spirituality of the Deity. As 
monotheism is the chief doctrine of Mosaism, so is the Sabbath its 
main practical institution, enjoined with almost the same solem- 
nity, reiteration and insistence as the first. The lawgiver spares 
no time, place, opportunity or inducements to strengthen, uphold 
and impress it upon the minds and the veneration of his follow- 
ers. Its observance is accompanied by the greatest promise of 
worldly and spiritual welfare and its infraction is threatened with 
divine wrath and human death penalty. It is termed the Sign of 
the Mosaic Covenant, 0th Berith. And that is not simply a 
s^^mbol, an outward emblem of a certain idea or a historical remi- 
niscence, as for instance the sign of the covenant with Abraham 



"lISl*', in II M. 20 it reads : Ti!JT 1 



i66 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

or with Noah.^ No, it is the great practical and reaHstic establish- 
ment of Mosaism, characterizing Jewish perennial life. A Jew 
observes the Sabbath-day and believes in the One God in Spirit. 
We have largely and elaborately treated of that great. Mosaic, 
settled order in a previous volume,^ and refer the reader thereto. 
There we have seen that the Sabbath is the symbol of Mosaism 
in the most exalted and pregnant sense. It is not merely a sign, 
standing for a tenet or a doctrine; no, it is its very object and 
foundation. It is a social, religious and humanitarian institution, of 
the grandest dimensions and far-reaching results. It is the ground- 
work and base of the Mosaic religion, civilization, people and 
state, expanding to the utmost bounds. We have surveyed there 
the immense spread of that establishment : three hundred millions 
of Christians and four hundred millions of Mohammedans, ac- 
cepted and imitated it. Philosophers, political economists, social- 
istic leaders, radical cosmopolitan thinkers cannot do away with it, 
and recognize the practical urgent usefulness of a periodical rest- 
day. Jewish mysticism, the Agada, Medraschim and Oabbala are 
fond of it. Its glorification passed even into the common parlance 
and daily prayerbook. The Sabbath is a household word of civili- 
zation. Poetry and mysticism bestow on it the most endearing 
epithets : It is the "bride," "princess," "queen of Israel :" Come, 
my friend, let us go to meet the bride, let us welcome the presence 
of the Sabbath.3 Qne of the greatest modern poets of Jewish 
genius and birth, based upon that a most charming fairy-tale, 
strikingly depicting its refreshing influence upon individuals and 
the people, especally the down-trodden Jew of by-gone ages : "A 
prince born in the purple is by malice and witchcraft degraded and 
changed into a canine beast, a brute with brutish instincts and 
habits, a mean animal, fawning, snarling and sneaking at the mas- 
ter's feet, licking the hand that tenders him a morsel of m.eat, 
bowing and dancing, grumbling and barking alternately for a 
consideration, feeding on carrion, from every dunghill, in all the 
public places. Such he passes during the six week days. But 
when Friday eve arrives, lo ! a princess appears, mysterious, fair, 
lovely as the m.oon. She appears with her wand in hand. She 



(1 M. 9.13) n^p — 1 M. 17.13) nb'i2— II M. 31.13) nn3 nix i 

2Spirit of the Bible Legislation, p. 13. 

SAssumed by Jeh Halevy, Sabbath ritual hymn. n^3 n«"lp^ ^"TH HD^ 3 



THE SABBATH OF T?IE DECALOUGE. 167 

nods and smiles, and the malicious spell is broken, the barking 
dog is again a king, a king with royal pride and dignity, with 
generous sentiments and noble thoughts, every inch a king. And 

the re-instated royalty puts on the regalia. Crown on head and 
scepter in hand, he woos and marries the mysterious fairy-prin- 
cess." The parable, sad, sweet and charming is easy to under- 
stand. The king degraded into a barking brute is Israel, once 
sovereign of fair Judaea, degraded by tyranny and sophistry, since 
Pompeius, Titus and Hadrian, to the very middle of the last cen- 
tury, aye, to this very day, by priest and Cossack, by cruel perse- 
cutions, slander, misunderstanding and fanaticism, into a barking 
dog. And the mysterious princess who arrives once weekly, weds 
him, and restores him to his antique dignity, to the principality of 
mind, is the Sabbath-day. 

Sabbath it was that for nearly 18 centuries broke the chains of 
the enslaved, gagged and benighted Ghetto-Jew and made him 
again a prince in the domain of character. During those long cen- 
turies when baron and bishop were crude, illiterate, he alone was 
educated. Do you remember the happy, bright, glorious Sabbath- 
eve and morning, a generation or two ago, beyond the Atlantic? 
What toil and drudgery, what agony and wretchedness during 
the preceding six weekly days, and what consolation and cheer, 
hopefulness and holiness on the Sabbath ; the Sabbath-eve with its 
blessed lights, the consecrated table, the white loaves, the blessed 
cup, the cheery repast and merry songs. ^ And the Sabbath-day 
with its congregational life, its holy services, the family gathering, 
the hospitality, the study and fraternal calls ? They were no empty 
ceremonies, but customs fraught with genuine spirit and humane 
elevation. That kept the Jew alive in the tomb of the Ghetto for 
long, dark ages, a fore-taste of a better existence, in future aeons 
of existence.2 And this benign and elevating influence of the 
Sabbath on the Ghetto-Jew is visible in history on the Gentile 
masses too. Poverty, despotism and ignorance built for them a 
Ghetto no less than for the Jew. A look at the peasants in East- 
ern, and even in Western Europe shows their condition hardly 
better than that of the Hebrews. To them, too, the Sabbath 
brought some rest, consolation, and hope for better times. Also 
them the Sabbath rescued from total degeneration. 



t>)Tp ,m3-i3 ,nn^Dr ^ 



168 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

Now we must not misunderstand history. Not everything of 
the past must be eulogized, and not everything of the present 
criticised. I do not wish back those times of toil and starvation 
during the week, and plenty of Shalet,^ and, in part, imaginary 
bliss on the rest-day. I prefer modern freedom, citizenship and 
economic well-being to all the delights of the Ghetto. But what 
I do regret, what I do wish to see restored in the modern Jewish 
home is, the spirit, the energy of those times, the true mentality, 
the sincere religiousness, and the firm will-power to continue as a 
light to the nations,- as a ''minority wherein the divine spirit 
moves" ;^ I wish to see restored the unshaken trust in God, in 
right, in reason, in honesty ; the high sense for intellectual pleas- 
ures, educating, thinking, studying; the respect for learning and 
for character ; the simplicity, frugality, purity, modesty, solidarity, 
sympathy ; the family adherence, the strength of each unit and 
the national cohesion, the strong physique and the noble spirit- 
uality of the old time Jew; that I wish to be restored to modern 
Israel as a pattern for mankind at large. These virtues were all 
the alumni and concomittants of the blessed princess Sabbath. 
The Western Jew has since gained much during the week, but is 
he still the prince of mind?. . . 

THE HUMANITARIAN SABBATH-INFLUENCE. 

Elsewhere, as mentioned, we have attempted to trace the in- 
fluence of our institutions. That influence is manifold and world- 
wide. When one throws a stone into a large sheet of water, that 
sudden impulse will induce a gradual commotion on its entire 
surface ; first a bubbling circle around the stone, which circle will 
cause another one, that still another, etc., each new circle larger 
than the preceding one, all clustering around the center, extending 
and covering the entire superficies of the water-sheet. Even such 
is the efifect of our great rest-day establishment on the ocean of 
humanity. It means first to be a day of cessation from manual 
work, a pause from weekly labor, an abstention from every day's 
cares, in order to recreate the forces and refresh the bodies of 
the great mass of hard-working people. It means next to offer 



iThe favorite dish of old Ghetto existence. 

■Is. 49.6. D^"i3 "i^xb ^rnnj 2 
SMatthew Arnold on Minorities 



THE HUMANITARIAN SABBATH-INFLUENCE. 169 

the time and desire for mental, moral and spiritual concerns ; to 
offer for any kind of mind-culture the leisure and opportunity, 
for the development of the multiple capacities, instincts and aspi- 
rations of our innate higher humanity, as science, religion, art, 
sympathy, sociability, worship, mostly neglected during the six 
week days, absorbed in the exclusive cares for the body. Thirdly, 
Sabbath aims at the socio-political amelioration of men, at the 
emancipation and equalization of the plebeian majority from the 
yoke of the reigning minority, the masses from the classes, within 
the same country and nation. When these poor, hardworking 
masses rest and recreate bodily, cultivate their minds, mentally 
and ethically, at least one day in the week, they will gradually 
rise in the social scale, break their politico-social shackles, acquire 
the desire, the aspiration, the energy and finally the means to 
conquer their human dignity, their legal and political equality 
and liberty.! 

Sabbath means, fourthly, the elevation and emancipation of the 
several human fractions, nationalities, peoples, countries, races 
of the one, identical great human species. It offers to the subju- 
gated masses everywhere, the opportunity for bodily recuperation, 
mental and moral elevation, political and social justice from 
foreign yokes and native exploitations. It will in time succeed 
to inspirit, energize and elevate them, politically and socially, 
economically and industrially; to enfranchise and liberate the 
subjugated races and countries, internationally ; to free from tute- 
lage and downright conquest people from people, sect from sect, 
race from race and country from country, the subjugated from 
their masters. It will unyoke the Pariah from the Brahman and 
Kshatria, the Hilot and barbarian from the Spartan and the 
Greek, the serf and villain from the baron and the bishop. It 
will free the woman, the child, the orphan, the poor, the working 
man, the toiling peasant, the ostracised ones, from legal and eco- 
nomical inferiority, from the harsh employers, aiming at pluto- 
cracy by the capital acquired at his expense. Capital and savings 
by thrift, are blessings to society, the poor and industry. It is 
turned to a curse by heartless selfishness and over-reaching. 
Through the great opportunities of the Sabbath, Pariah, Helot, 



■3 See on the Sabbath, theme, Maimonides Guide, part III, Tame 
Hamitzvoths, where he emphasizes besides the bodily rest and recrea- 
tion chiefly the timely creation of the world, important in his time, not 
so much in ours. 



170 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

Gibeonite and toilers of the glebe will rest and recreate bodily, 
develop spiritually, rise socially and break the odious yoke of 
exploitation, of assumed superiority and inferiority of race, 
creeds or sects, treacherously kept up by the interested parties. 
Finally and fifthly, Sabbath is the consecrated day of rest, rec- 
reation and happiness to the brute too, to the entire living crea- 
tion, to all feeling mortal beings. It is the weekly holiday for all 
beings gifted v/ith life. It is the epoch of rehablitation and 
emancipation from all sorts of usurpations, artificial, historical, 
enforced bondages ; the restoration to the original, natural con- 
dition, that of being dependent upon God and self, not man. It 
invests with rights even the brute, the dumb and mute, yet feeling 
animal kingdom, man's drudges and vehicles of burden, still his 
assistants in the work of civilization, as the ox, the ass, the 
horse, the tools and conveyances of his labors. As such and for 
their own sake, they are entitled to life, protection, sympathy, 
health and well-being. Therefore to them too, the Sabbath vin- 
dicates and guarantees a weekly day of rest and recuperation. 

Thus the Sabbath is the divine institution of enfranchisement 
and rehabilitation. It is the habeas corpus against all sorts of 
usurpations, against historical, conventional, artificial bondages ; 
against racial, sexual and sectional pretenses ; against individual, 
class, guild, state and caste privileges. It is the return to the 
natural, original conditions of feeling beings, before man came 
in with his selfish, cruel, suicidal encroachments. It proclaims 
prospective freedom to all rational and moral creatures, to the 
ground down toiler of the soil, the spiritually, educationally, and 
economically neglected, the politically degraded, the socially os- 
tracised, the subjugated individual, tribe, race, country and sect. 
Finally it vindicates some protection to the dumb brute, the assist- 
ant of man and his indispensable tool.^ All this is distinctly ex- 
pressed or implied in the Decalogue (II M., 20 and V M., 5.) : 
''Observe the Sabbath day and sanctify it. . .Six days shalt thou 
labor and perform all thy work, but the seventh day is a pause, 
a rest unto Ihvh, thy God; Thou shalt not do any work; thou, 
thy son and thy daughter ; thy male and female slave, thy ox and 
thy ass and all thy beasts, and the stranger in thy gates — that 
thy male and female slaves may rest as thyself. . .for remember, a 



no^ynni D^mj lyi i^c* nsin n*^ .i^ns "iisj' Dinnn k^ i 



THE HUMANITARIAN SABBATH-INFLUENCE. 171 

slave thoii hast been in Egypt and God rescued thee from thence, 
for that purpose he ordained thee to keep the Sabbath-day." Here 
are the mentioned five-fold objects of the institution : To protect 
the body, the mind, the freedom and the well-being of the indi- 
viduals, the classes and the stations of man, inclusive of the pro- 
tection of the brute. 

To that day, of such a vast, world-wide import to human bet- 
terment and allsided happiness, the Lawgiver vindicates an ex- 
alted origin. He identifies it with the very creation and the rise 
of man : After the world of matter and animality had been 
completed, and mind, civilized mian, Adam, made his appearance, 
the Sabbath was inaugurated.^ Whilst at Sinai it v/as solemnly or- 
dained, promulgated, blessed, sanctified, declared obligatory upon 
the Hebraic nation, and consecrated by the divine Lawgiver as 
the time set apart for elevating and spiritualizing man and his 
surroundings. It is the flag of Mosaism, Oth Berith, the basis 
of human civilization. The Lawgiver is most solicitous to im- 
press upon, strengthen and uphold it, by all means at his disposal, 
reward and punishment, divine and human; God and the State 
are its guardians ; stripes, even death and extirpation^ when 
warned, are set upon its transgression; it is mentioned and re- 
peated again and again, forcibly and circumstantially in the 
creation chapters, in the I and II Decalogue and in a hundred 
more passages of the Bible. 

SABBATH THOUGHTS HERE AND IN "BIBLE LEGIS- 
LATION." 

We quote here part of our characterization of that theme from 
our previous treatise, "Spirit of Biblical Legislation," p. 142- 
163 : The Sabbath-day is set apart by divine Providence for the* 
bodily, mental, moral, spiritual, political and ethico-social advance 
of man. It is a day devoted to bodily recreation, moral improve- 
ment, mental culture, spiritual uplifting and social rehabilitation; 
for liberation from the weekly drudgery and soaring up to a 
higher plane of humane existence, moral, religious, scientific, 
esthetic and humanitarian, to everything divine in hum.an nature ; 



1 Some sort of a popular Sabbath or rest-day was known to the pre- 
Sinaic world, as further on shown. 

m3 ,nn^D ,nipbo ^ 



172 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

raising man to that messianic zone where his entire life will be 
one great divine service, when duty, virtue and happiness will 
become coincident, the different aspects of the one and the same 
prism of perfect humanity . . . 

In Exodus xvi., 26, one may find a hint that the Hebrews in 
Egypt had a notion of the seventh day of rest, and from Assyrio- 
Babylonian discoveries we may learn that such a custom was not 
unknown in the Orient, older than Sinai and Abraham,^ some 
sort of a popular sport- or rest-day. But it is only in Mosaism 
where it received its prominence, its sacred dignity, as a solemn 
rest, consecrated to God, Sahhaton^ VQadsho, for body and mind, 
peremptory, categoric, for rich and poor, master and slave, even 
the beast of burden. That grand role in history as the Sabbath, 
it received solely and singly since the epoch of Sinai. History 
can positively trace it only since the Arabian epoch. From 
that date on, it became the 0th Bcrifh, the flag and banner of 
Israel's religion. Gradually it reached the Western Gentile 
world, became generally adopted, and the base for human civili- 
zation, emancipating, enlightening and elevating the masses 
wherever it penetrated, and assumed the import and dimensions 
of a universal institution. The Christian world celebrates it on 
Sunday, the Mohammedan one on Friday, the East- Asiatic peo- 
ples too will soon adopt, and may solemnize it on Monday. Still 
it is the self-same disguised Mosaico-prophetic Sabbath or weekly 
rest-day. Its import is the fact of consecrating a weekly pause 
for rest and mentality. It must be a weekly rest-day, not every 
ten days, as tried by the French revolution, not every month, 
nor a voluntary, individually preferred rest-day. No, only a uni- 
versally accepted, permanent day will answer our humane needs, 
and that is the prophetic weekly God-blessed Sabbath. 

On that day there shall be made no distinction between 
master and slave, Judaean and Gibeonite, between races, 
origins and castes. By bodily rest, spiritual and mental cul- 
tivation and leisure for education, men will gradually acquire 
the will, the power and the intelligence to conquer their 
conquerors.. . .The rest-day establishment is the great benefactor 
of the dependent, the uneducated, the socially ostracised, the con- 
quered races and the brute creation. Justly interpreting the text, 
the Talmud imposes the Sabbath rest of slaves and beasts as a 



iSee ibid., 146. 



SABBATH THOUGHTS HERE AND IN "BIBLE LEGISLATION." 

173 

positive duty of the Jew. Read the Commandment and its 
detail sentences carefully, and observe how the lawgiver was 
anxious to make it a universal rest and recreation. He knows 
human nature ! Lest the upper classes might cunningly mis- 
construe the object and aim of this weekly arrangement; lest the 
employer, the speculator, the historical aristocrat may usurp it 
for himself and his own class, and consider it as his privilege; 
lest he should pretend that his kin alone are the children of God, 
that the pariah and the Hilot, the peasant, the wage-laborer have 
no claim upon that holiday, and thus exclude the son of toil from 
the protection of this universal institution of freedom — the law- 
giver, a son of toil himself, repeats with so much emphasis and 
sums it up with so much stress : "That thy man- and maid-servant 
may rest as thyself." The strong, free and rich have leisure, ease 
and liberty enough. But the majority, the laboring masses, the 
ninety-nine out of every one hundred, need the day urgently, 
peremptorily. They do need all the solicitude, tender care and 
sympathetic protection of society and the law. Society and law 
must step in and protect the weak and poor especially. So the 
lawgiver, the divinely ordained representative of society, the con- 
secrated organ of divine, universal justice, the prophetic mouth- 
piece of the Legislation of Horeb, of Israel, of mankind, not only 
of the historical aristocracy, steps in and emphatically ordains : 
''That on the Sabbath-day the poor and dependent shall rest like 
the master." And well knowing man, changing feelings 
with dress, he sternly recalls to the mind of the overbearing 
aristocrat and exploiter: (Deut., v., 15) Thy gold and silk 
and titles are but of yesterday : a slave thou hast been in Egypt 
and I, God, have freed thee by my sovereign power, therefore be 
not selfish, allow the poor his chance of recuperation. Remem- 
ber thou art not born a master, not in the purple, a slave thou 
hast been in Egypt. Justice has been done unto thee, do justice to 
those humble and dependent upon thee, for the mighty arm of 
Supreme Justice is outstretched alike over him and over thee." . . . 
Kind readers ! Remember your own Egypt, in Ireland, Germany, 
Russia, of yesterday, or a century ago. In America, the conse- 
crated ground of freedom and justice to all the ostracised, let the 
poor have his weekly Rest-day. Do not begrudge it to him or 
her, thy man-servant or thy maid servant, thy middle-man, clerk 
or workman. Remember, when the bright Sabbath miorning dawns 



174 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

upon the awakening eyes of those dependent upon thee, let each 
of them feel and say : ''Today, I also, am a free, rational happy 
being, I can recreate, breathe freely, enjoy my existence, be with 
my family, see my friends and commune with my God. 

The diverse many-sided scopes and aspirations, the far-reaching 
objects of the Sabbath-day are slowly but surely being attained. 
Observe the sure, silent, steps of history, from Sinai to Washing- 
ton, from Moses to Tolstoy. ''How lovely are on the mounts the 
feet of the messenger, announcing peace, and salvation, that, O 
Zion! thy God reigneth (Is., 52., 7)." Look to these grand 
stations and mileposts of history: Sinai, Karmel, Zerubabel and 
Maccabeus ; the One-God-faith accepted by the Shomites, then by 
the Arians, nearer yet by Northern Europe ; the liberation by the 
French, American and West-European revolutions . . . Do you 
hear that revolutionary tocsin roaring? That is the reverbera- 
tion from Horeb, emancipating and elevating the poor masses. 
These are the workings of our Decalogue with its grand, world- 
vast Sabbath Institution, enfranchising mankind." 

SABBATH IN AMERICA. 

Now in the beginning of the 20th century, here in North America, 
we may say that its first great object is fairly being attained: 
Women and children are free and protected. There are here no 
serfs of the glebe, and no lords of the manor; no drudges and 
no born patricians. The poor and the working men fight for 
their betterment, and they will attain it. At any rate there is 
free government by and for the people, free vote, free speech, free 
press, free education, free conscience and free worship. Even in 
Europe, the nationalities and creeds, races and sexes stand up and 
fight for their autonomy. We have here no born reigning and 
no born serving classes. A vast democracy reigns, no dominant 
church, but compulsory secular education, equality in State and 
before the Law. "That thy man and maid-servant shall rest as 
thyself," is realized. What then is here the mission of our seventh 
day institution? "Remember the Sabbath-day to sanctify it." 
"Observe and reserve it for sanctification (II M. 20.8 and V M. 
5.12)" expresses it. Ingeniously the Agada interprets: ''Rememr 
ber" and ''observe" were pronounced in one breath,"^ viz : Re- 



Midrash, ad locum, nn« "imn inn "IIOK^ ^ 



SABBATH IN AMERICA. 175 

member and observe the Sabbath-day for sanctified purposes. It is 
the time set aside for the working classes to educate themselves ; the 
time for religious, mental, moral and spiritual culture and uplift- 
ing. Just here in America are material concerns, the cares and 
anxieties for the bodily and economic welfare, more absorbing, 
yea crushing, than at any time before and any place else. No 
use minimizing the sordid evil. It pervades nearly all the strata 
of American society, from humblest to highest. During the 
entire week there is a hurry, a bustle, a strife, a struggle for 
money-making and lucre, as if earthly existence was unlimited, 
as if the soul's salvation was at stake, as if the daily bread 
depended on that. All the energies, all contrivances, all ingenuity 
and all efforts are brought out for pecuniary acquisition, any 
other acquirement is lost sight of. Every brain is on the rack, 
every heart in an agony to discover new ways and methods for 
making an ''independent fortune" the sole, universal ideal of 
existence ! 

The m.aterialism, the sensuality, the idolatry of Mammon, the 
adoration of the Golden Calf are nowhere so prevalent as just in 
our Western hemisphere. Elsewhere, birth, glory, achievements, 
learning, character, count — with us. Money ! The European 
poverty explains the American immigrant's greed; that explains, 
but it does not justify; man is more than a stomach. 

The chief object of Sabbath should therefore be to counteract 
and mitigate these one-sided blindfolded tendencies, to save, at 
least, one day out of seven for non-material concerns. On the 
seventh day let us visit the house of God, there to strengthen and 
elevate our minds by instruction, prayer and meditation. Let us 
listen to a sermon or a lecture calculated to offer real and true 
ethical benefit. Or let us take up a good book, sometimes Isaiah 
or the Psalms, and sometimes on old or a modern thinker and 
writer for edification. Or let us admire art, a fine picture and a 
good symphony are refining also. Or let us go out of town into 
the vast, green, blooming areas of nature, there to admire and 
adore ; to adore the Creator by admiring his grandiose handiwork. 
No temple gives us so grand a conception of the Lord of nature 
as the sublime aspect of that boundless nature itself, with its 
illimitable starry dome, heaven's canopy, and its innumerable 
shining worlds, ever attuning their praises to the Grand Maker. 



176 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

Or let us attend to our family's well-being, our children's school- 
ing, see a friend or visit the sick, or look at the communal 
interests. Such are the objects becoming the Sabbath, worthy 
modes of sanctifying the day by improving the indivdual and the 
society. 

Unfortunately the Sabbath is most ruthlessly neglected, yea, 
desecrated in America more than ever and anywhere else. It is 
desecrated by Orthodox and Reformer, whatever these terms may 
mean : facts are too flagrant to need much comment. I will only 
call attention in illustration of one of the many sad consequences 
of that fact. That is the ignoble materialism, reigning just here 
and now, the neglect of higher education, of true culture and 
nobler aspirations, the lack of esthetics and real refinement, 
people catering generally to ostentation, money-making and sen- 
sual pleasures. 

Out of a million of American Israelites I do not know 50 men, 
remarkable for anything else than finance and business smart- 
ness. I do not know such 45, not 40, not 30, not 20, not 10. Oh, 
what a terrible fall ! Israel, once the nation of mind and culture, 
is now the people of Mammon. True, this reproach is not alone 
at the address of the Jew, it is a general one, justly applied to 
the present American idiosyncrasies, without difference of race, 
creed or nationality. It is the darkest reverse-side of our democ- 
racy. But it weighs doubly heavy upon the Jew. Because "no- 
bility obliges"; he is representing the ''kingdom of priests and 
holy nations." As such more is expected of him. Besides he is 
a minority and more conspicuous. "He must be of gold to pass 
for silver. " Wherefore be a minority if it is not superior to 
the majority !.. .That peculiar money-taste has impressed itself 
even upon our language: "He is worth thousands!" is a common 
phrase, prizing a rational man according to his purse ; forgetting 
that he may be worth a million ducats and yet be absolutely 
worthless. What a vulgarity! What false measurements to 
apply to ethical beings in assuming that merely to have money, 
implies to have brains, morals, worth ! How much does such an 
estimate degrade man's own better self ! The immigrant is prized 
by his capacity to make a livelihood. But a prosperous nation 
of 80 millions should repudiate such crude notions. So at the 
mercy of wind and wave do people drift about on the stormy 



SABBATH IN AMERICA. 177 

ocean of life, and when the harlot, fortune, turns her back upon 
them, when they lose the money, they have lost everything, "they 
are worthless," and pitilessly despised. Their money has fled 
with their wits, their social standing, their self-respect, they are 
worthless in every sense and lie prostrate at the feet of the 
Golden calf. 

Often we hear well-meaning parents complaining of the cal- 
lousness of children, of their lack of ambition, of application, of 
their dislike of study. No, the children are the victims, not the 
authors thereof. Do not impugn the young, you wTong them 
twice. The young are but the offspring of the old, and bear the 
consequences thereof. Their faults proceed from the parents, 
not from nature. The child sees the father first make the money, 
by any means, and then spend it by all means, but never read 
or study, and of course, it contracts the same tastes and habits. 
Every one has a parlor; who has a library? Every one is bent 
on amusement ; how many read serious books, anxious to improve ? 
Who sets to the young the example of an intellectual enjoyment, 
a generous pursuit, a noble aspiration? The attentive boy and 
girl find the parents working during the week, working on the 
Sabbath and playing or idling on Sunday. When and how should 
they learn and contract the habits, taste and zeal for intellectual 
and refining pursuits ! 

Pondering over all the social and moral factors of American 
society, the conviction forces itself upon the thinking contem- 
plator that the great cause of American materialism lies in the 
fact of the general neglect and the improper use of the Sabbath- 
day, and that a restoration of the Sabbath alone will improve 
m.atters. Nothing short of this will ! 

SABBATH OR ANY OTHER DAY? 

Practical people, engrossed solely by the struggle for existence^ 
ask the following : Alust we still continue, now as of yore, 
in America as on the entire globe, to celebrate the Rest-day on 
the 7th day of the week? The Decalogue says: "for six days 
shalt thou labor. . .and on the seventh day is a rest." Can we 
not rest each and every one, according to our convenience and 
utility, on any one day out of seven? The Decalogue refers to 
the last day, to the very close of the week of divine creation 



178 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

(Gen. II.l). But now that modern astronomy has so marvel- 
ously expanded the universe, that even this our own solar system 
has many v/orld-planets, each having its own day, viz. : the time 
of its rotation around its own axis, hence is our day of 24: hours 
pecuHar to itself, to this terrestrial globe, not to any other planet, 
the less so to any other solar system; hence can the Sabbath 
mean simply one day out of seven for recuperation. Could we 
not therefore choose, each his own day, or whenever it suits 
most of us, or even coincide with the respective majority of the 
nations among whom we dwell, in the United States, Europe, Asia 
or Africa ? Must we cling to the 7th day Sabbath as heretofore, 
or could we American Jews choose another day? True we need 
a day for rest, culture, worship, etc., but would not any other 
day answer the purpose? Whenever we have the time and 
leisure? So practical people ask who have not fully grasped the 
problem, who imagine they can create a Sabbath at will, adding 
still : ''We are reformers, we look to the essence, not the forms ; 
why not change the customary day if it is not convenient to the 
community, if it clashes so much with the majority? Why not 
continue the institution with all its benefits on any other day, more 
in harmony with surroundings and industrial interests? 

There is no use hushing up. Let us ventilate and frankly dis- 
cuss this arduous problem and find out the balance of reason. 

To these objections the answer is : Shall the Sabbath day 
answer its purpose, as intended by the providential legislator, viz : 
Ic qadsho, for sanctification, to improve man, to recreate his body, 
mind and soul, to raise his social, humane and political status, 
then it must be universal, for all, and permanent, year after year, 
for centuries and milleniums, here and in any part of the terres- 
trial globe as far as possible. It must be accepted and kept as 
by divine authority, enjoined by law and state, have the auriole 
of antiquity, be taught and imbibed with our mother's milk, con- 
temporaneous with Adam, creation, civilization. And such is the 
Sabbath of the Decalogue alone. Alone then can it be effica- 
cious. W^hilst if you choose your Sabbath according to your ov/n 
convenience, every year or week having its own convenience, 
once on that day and next time on another day of the week, and, 
of course, your neighbor too is to have his free selection of his 
rest day — then, I ask, would that be really a holy day, a Sabbath, 
set apart for sanctification, with all the far-reaching results and 



SABBATH OR ANY OTHER DAY? I79 

effects we have above contemplated ? By no means ! That would 
be an idling day, a jolly-day, not a holy-day, not a God blessed 
Sabbath ! A Sabbath-day needs the impress, the halo of eternity 
and universality, observed by all your fellow men, your congre- 
gation, your nearest and dearest. While if all its authority is 
your own, individual, temporary selection, it is empty, void, 
inoperative. The Sabbath of the Decalogue alone has that para- 
mount authority. It is affiliated with the very creation. As the 
week consists of six working days, and one, the last, is a Rest, 
even so creation lasted for six days, and the seventh God blessed 
and hallowed ; then later, mankind maturing, God ordained it on 
Sinai, as Israel's rest-day, for ever and for everywhere, without 
regard to time, place and individual convenience. That is a holy 
Sabbath. And since we have seen that trinitarian Christianity 
is but a phase in human development, bound to follow the univer- 
sal law of progress, that therefore trinity is silently preparing 
mankind for monotheism — then I can not see why the Sunday- 
rest should not make room for the genuine Seventh-day-Rest. 
Further on we shall elucidate this. 

SUNDAY, PRACTICAL MEN AND FACTS. 

But practical men reply: These are philosophical, theoretical, 
theological considerations. Contemxplate now the realistic, prac- 
tical side of the problem. We now labor under tremendous diffi- 
culties : One to a hundred compared with other denominations, 
under crushing competition, v/ith great needs, and with more 
social and economical envy than ever before. In Europe, a cen- 
tury ago, the Jew alone occupied with trade, he alone was the 
go-between, the middle-man between producer and consumer. 
The barons busied them.selves with war, politics, gallantry; the 
peasants with manual field-labors. The Jew was the merchant, 
the industrial, the brain man, the banker, the traveling agent; he 
had little or no competition to fear. He could then choose his 
own market-, work- and rest-days. This was the case in Poland, 
Russia, Prussia, the Danubean and Balkan Provinces, Hungary, 
in part even until recent date. Conditions now have changed there 
too. Quite other circumstances prevail in America. W^e can hardly 
compete with the native Yankee merchants and industrials. How 

Maurice Fluegel's Exodus, Moses and the Decalogue. 



i8o EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

can we afford to vacate on the Sabbath, the hoHdays and the 
Sundays? Just on the Sabbath is the leading weekly business 
day. How could we stand competition? We and our families 
would be crushed out and pauperized ! We must yield ! not 
yield the weekly Sabbath rest, but merely the customary day. 
We shall once begin counting from Monday, then Sunday 
will be the 7th, every Sunday will be the 7th day, and so on. 
Sunday has the halo of 15 — 18 centuries. 300 — 400 millions 
celebrate it. Our American neighbors observe it, the State law 
insists on it. The seventh day Sabbath is in fact swept away. 
Ninety out of a hundred observe the Sunday. Besides must we 
not count the good feeling of our neighbors ? Must we not avoid 
provocation? Not try to conciliate and please? Why should 
we not fall in with the majority? So speak our practical men, 
honestly believing the Sunday-Sabbath will suit the purpose. 

Now pause and inquire first, and you will find out that just the 
Sunday fits the least for our Sabbath object. Examine the fol- 
lowing data : When we select the ground and collect the mate- 
rials for building a farm or a residence for us and for times to 
come, not a cottage for a season, we begin with examining its 
soil, composition, strata, surroundings, neighborhood and all the 
building materals. We have been observng the Sabbath day of 
the Decalogue and now some suggest to change it for another 
commercially more convenient day. You will therefore I hope, 
be desirous of examining the previous history, genesis and mean- 
ing of the Sunday. From hoary antiquity the Arian heathen 
world had devoted the first day of the week to the leading 
deity of their mythologies pantheon, the Sun-God, for fun, disport- 
ment, jollification and spontaneous relaxation on that Sunday. 
Even that is little mentioned anywhere. Over 18 centuries ago 
the few Hebrew followers of the man to whom later was imparted 
the role of the founder of trinitarian Christianity, and his first 
disciples, later called Apostles, were humble, devout and sincere 
Jews, just like their master. He and they sacredly observed and 
kept the Sabbath of the Decalogue and never contemplated any 
change, never ! He had said, according to Matthew : Think not 
that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets. I am not 



iThe Sun the most beneficent force in nature. Even Zeus originally 
meant light and Apollo-Phoebus, light, was his favorite son. 



SUNDAY, PRACTICAL MEN AND FACTS. i8i 

come to destroy but to fulfill, for verily I say unto you, till heaven 
and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from 
the law till all be fulfilled. ^ His apostles, disciples and followers, 
all strictly adhered to this program. They, as he, would have 
shrunk with horror at the idea of desecrating the Sababth. He 
and they and even Paul observed the seventh day rest. But Paul, 
imbued with Greek ideas, gradually may have begun to doubt any 
preference of days and seasons,^ thinking them perhaps simple 
ceremonies. Whilst the acknowledged immediate apostles clung to 
the Law and the Sabbath, without any shadow of doubt or hesita- 
tion. But deeply impressed with all the features of honesty, suavity, 
enthusiasm, pure aspirations of their departed master, they soon 
assumed him as a Davidian, a Messiah, who after his crucifixion 
Avas resurrected and translated to heaven, as Elijah or Henoch 
had been. These Hebrew-Christians, viz : Jews believing that 
Jesus was the expected Messiah, remembered on the Sunday 
(mourning being forbidden on Sabbath by the rabbinic law) his 
tragic death, soon his resurrection and lastly his ascension. 
So Sunday became a day of prayer, fasting and penitence, for the 
few Jews who clung to the messianic character of their de- 
parted leader. The Decalogue-Sabbath continued as heretofore, 
to be celebrated on the 7th day, the last of the week, as the day 
of rest, recreation and sanctiiication. Such it continued for two to 
three centuries, by the apostles and the first bishops, who lived and 
died as their master, pious Jews. But gradually that original He- 
brew-Christian sect, the Ebionites, the Baptists, the Revivalists, etc. 
dwindled away and died out. Their remnants were out-crowded 
by, or fused with, the huge masses of Gentiles from all the neigh- 
boring nations, that flocked to the Christian camp, at the an- 
nouncement of Paul and his later followers, that the God of Israel 
will readily receive them into his Church and his parental heart; 
that Israel's God is the God, the only One, Spirit, Mind, the 
Unknown God of the Greek world ; that he desired no local or 
sectional observances, but virtue and good deeds and willingly 
accepts on these terms the Gentile too to his grace and benefi- 
cence. In distinction from the Jews and as their rallying parole, 
the Gentile Christians accepted Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah, 
in Greek, the Christ, the God-anointed and appointed, and called 



1 Matthew V, 17 and 18. Luke XVI, 17. 
2Galatians IV, 9 and 10, and other remarks of Paul. 



i82 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

themselves Christians. From that moment the Mosaic Law and 
the Sabbath began to step into the back-ground. As all other 
Jewish holidays, so the Sabbath began to be discarded. The 
Roman emperor, Constantine the Great, in the IV Century, after 
long political oscillations and hesitations, finding polytheism 
ruined, and the world needing a church with a creed and Credo, 
became a Christian and slowly made Christianty the dominant 
religion. He made an end to the doubts about the public rest- 
day. The Gentile world was declared to be Christian; the new 
religion, as not identical with Mosaism, Judaism and Talmudism. 
Monotheism compromised with polytheism and became Trinitari- 
anism ; disestablished was the Mosaic Law, but the prophetico-social 
one was retained. That was the content of the Nicaean State re- 
ligion. The Mosaic 7th-day-Sabbath was abolished, and the Sunday, 
the day obscurely remembered by the pagan world and originally 
devoted to the Sun-God as Sunday, was declared to take the 
place of the Sabbath for the Gentile Christian world. It was, as 
entire Christianity, a compromise between the old and the new, 
the Mosaic and the Gentile world, between the overwhelming 
majority and the humble minority, between the Gentile Chris- 
tians and the Jewish Ebionites who alone remembered that Jesus, 
the Apostles, Paul and the bishops of the first two or three cen- 
turies had been all Biblical Jews ! The Sabbath, as purely Jewish, 
was abolished and the Sunday of ancient heathen origin, was 
substituted, thus amalgamating the Biblical monotheistic Sabbath- 
ideas with the polytheistic ones of Sunday. 

SUNDAY, THE SYMBOL OF TRINITY. 

The Sunday- Sabbath is thus the seal and symbol of the trini- 
tarian religion, saliently distinguishing it from Judaism. It 
betokens the fusion of the spirit of Judaism with that of poly- 
theism. The Sunday does not remember the One God Creator, 
but the Christ as the founder of Christianity, the resurrected 
Messiah, a person or part of the Trinity, god-the-son, who came 
to redeem man and the world, who died on the cross and redeemed 
by his passion the sins of those who believe in his vicarious office ; 
who resurrected and ascended to heaven, standing there at the 
right hand of God: God-the-father, himself God-the-son, and 
God the Holy Ghost being three distinct gods, yet making up 
one Divine Unity. — This means the Sunday-Sabbath. Sunday 



SUNDAY, THE SYMBOL OF TRINITY. 183 

blends the new and the old elements and constitutes the badge 
of Christianity, just as Sabbath is the badge (Oth Berith) of 
Judaism. 

But holy seasons are not created by an imperial edict. It 
requires something else than the interest and the policy of the 
prince and his hierarchy. The Sabbath was abolished for the 
Gentiles, but for centuries the Sunday hardly gained by that. It 
continued the occasion of hilarity and jollification for the masses, 
and for a few, that of fasting and penitential worship, but not 
as the day for rest, culture, happiness, and sanctification for all. 
The Christian world had no Sabbath in the sense of the term. 

In the beginning of the Eighth Century, the previous sudden 
and amazing revolution in Arabia, and the rise of the Mo- 
hammedan po^ver having shown the weak points of Christian- 
ity, the Emperor Leo, of Constantinople made an effort to in- 
vigorate it. One of his reforms was the solemn transfer of the 
sanctity of the Biblical Sabbath to the Christian Sunday. But 
he did not succeed much better than Constantine and the Ni- 
caean Council four centuries earlier. It was a day of official 
worship and popular merriment, not in the Mosaic sense, a 
universal holy rest and moral uplifting. The despised and 
down-trodden Jews had their ancient Sabbath, not so the Gen- 
tile world. Not until the epoch of the Protestant Reformation, 
far in the Sixteenth Century, when Luther, Calvin and Knox 
succeeded to effect a Sunday-rest. Coming nearer the spirit 
of the Bible in other respects, they succeeded in clothing the 
Sunday with part of the authority and the benefactions of the 
Sabbath. In North Germany, Holland, Switzerland, and more 
even in Scotland, England and North America, there is a Sun- 
day Sabbath, worthy of the name, devoted to general rest, 
worship, quiet home life, and recreation. Nevertheless it falls 
short of the Mosaic Sabbath. It is marred by its undeniable 
historical origin. It is not even there a day of genuine cheer 
and sociability and mental and humane culture. It is still half 
a penitential day. It is half a mystic day. It reminds one of 
crucifixion and ascension. Hence it is termed the Lord's day 
and too much monopolized by the ministers for repeated 
church going and sermons. It has still the atmosphere of 
gloom and monotony, distinctly remembering the old Jew- 
Christian Sunday of yore, of fasting and penitence, of the pas- 



i84 



EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 



sion and the death on the Cross, as claimed by the Church. It 
is half and half a day of mourning and castigation. The serene, 
cheerful, realistic, sky-blue atmosphere of the Biblical Sabbath, 
the day of joy and recreation, of moral, mental and hygienic 
uplifting of body and niind^ when the family members and 
friends assemble around the sacred hearth in token of peace 
and hapiness, that character it lacks even today. It is a Puri- 
tan Church day, a ministers', pietistic day; it is not, as intended 
in the Bible and advised by physiology and hygienics, a day 
for every man, woman and child, for their bodily, mental, 
moral, esthetic, political and social betterment and happiness. 
Contrasting the ideas symbolized by each of these days, in 
the respective camps, we find that, 



Saturday-Sabbath repre- 
sents : 

God-one, Mind, Spirit, Cre- 
ator of the Universe. 



God pure Spirit, 
changeable; 



un- 



God Eternal, omnipresent, 
omniscient. Only One. 

God Allpowerful, Allwise, 
Allgood. 

Best world. God's crea- 
tion, for the happiness of all. 

Man in God's image, free, 
rational, moral. 

Man with reason and free 
choice of good or evil, capa- 
ble of virtue and happiness. 

]^,Ian is by reason and ef- 
forts master of fate. 

Sabbath-rest, energy, sanc- 
tification, joy. 
This means Sabbath. 



Whilst Sunday brings to 
mind these ideas : 

God three, Father, Son 
and Holy Ghost, Logos- 
Creator. 

God incarnated, assumed 
forms and phases, hypos- 
tasis. 

God, born, died, resurrect- 
ed, split in three. 

God frustrated, overreach- 
ed by the devil, crucified. 

Worst world, by devil and 
sin, doomed to hell ; 

Man tainted with original 
sin doomed to eternal hell, 
from his very birth. 

Man radically bad and un- 
happy. Only blind obedi- 
ence and blood of Christ 
save — fatalism ! 

Man doomed, deeds avail 
not, creed is all, grace, not 
m^erit. 

Sunday, gloom, penance ; God 
died on Cross. 

This means Sunday. 



Is. 58, is.ijiy r\2^b ns-ipi i 



SUNDAY, THE SYxMBOL OF TRINITY. i8s 

To uphold the one set and oppose the other, Israel suffered 
martyrdom these last 15 centuries. 

Here is the Sabbath and its ideas and there the Sunday, its 
background and concepts. These are no artificial construc- 
tions, they are facts, stern historical data. In accepting the 
seventh or the first day, the one or the other flag, we accept 
the one or the other set of ideas, respectively, symbolized by 
each. The two pregnant sets of tenets, diametrically oppose 
each other. You can not harmonize or blend them. For the 
Sabbath ideas Israel has been battling during these last thirty- 
five centuries. For them he has been suffering daily martyr- 
dom in the last fifteen, just for not acquiescing in these Siinday 
views. Shall he now give up the Sabbath ideas and adopt the 
Sunday ones : Triune God, incarnated, born and died, resur- 
rected and ascended bodily — to heaven, to improve the world, 
(spoiled by the Devil), and redeem the Christian portion of man- 
kind ; leaving all other men to their doom, eternal Hell, tainted 
from their birth by the original sin of Adam and Eve; salva- 
tion to be obtained only by the blood of the Messiah, man's 
deeds being of no avail ? Shall he, can he do so ? 

AMERICAN JEWS CONSIDER. 

Does any one of you believe in that? No ! You do not believe ! 
How then could you accept the Sunday-Sabbath, the official 
exponent and flag, historically pledged to these tenets, the 
mystic faith of the triune believer, diametrically opposed to 
all your convictions, reason and common sense? Or do you 
imagine you could retain the seventh day Sabbath-ideas with 
the Sunday as the Sabbath? Think a little ! Could you accept 
the flag of Russian autocracy and retain American democracy? 
Would that not be flagrant inconsistency, hypocrisy, lack of 
principle? Is there not imminent danger that with the Rus- 
sian flag you will become Russian slaves? 

Some years ago I discussed this matter with the well known 
late Professor Franz Delitzsch, a fine teacher of the Leipzig 
University, a real admirer of Jewish character, but an ardent 
conversionist. Pointing out to him the above argument, he 
said : "I am fully aware of this forceful argument. I know 
well that not all is correct in our own camp ... as yourself I 
accept the Unity and spirituality of God, but I wish that you, 



i86 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

Jews, overlooking these anomalies, should come over to us 
and help us correct them." To which I at once rejoined: 
"Would you advise one to move into a shaky house and then 
begin rebuilding its walls and roof? Is it not wiser first to 
repair it and then to move in? We Jews help you best to 
make that repair when standing outside, pointing out the 
defects and respectfully urging you on to correct them." 

Indeed would the Reformation have taken place, if Luther, 
Calvin, Zwingli, Melanchton, etc., had not found the Bible 
intact in Jewish hands, which enabled them to amend at least 
some of the official incongruities ? . . . Even so I say to you 
American Jews, Could you wisely and safely accept the Sun- 
day-Sabbath and then improve the principles underlying it? 
Is that not tantamount to moving into a shaky house and 
then begin rebuilding base, walls and roof ? 

How can you think of Sunday-Sabbath? Does not faith, 
logic and history constrain you to the conclusion that all 
those who accept the Credo: ''Hear O Israel, God is One," 
must cling to the Sabbath of the Decalogue, its flag of thirty- 
five hundred years ago? 

THE PRACTICAL SIDE. 

But your practical economical interests suffer by the Sab- 
bath, the multiple holidays, the two weekly rest-days. To this 
I reply : Your ancestors were politically and economically 
worse ofif, nevertheless they kept their Sabbath and holidays. 
They remained in the Ghetto princes of the mind. Pauperized 
they were by the boycott, the ostracism during the week, not 
by the Sabbath-Rest. You plead : "We can not keep our Sab- 
baths and holidays, considering economically, the needs of our 
families, we must support them." But you forget that just on 
account of your children, you must set them an example of 
conviction, character, principle ! Children need not only 
bread and raiment, but also character. "Not on bread alone 
man liveth, but on all flowing from the Divine breath. ^ We 
happily live in a land that can support a hundredfold popula- 
tion larger than the one it harbors ; but there is great scarcity of 
character now a days. Parents should not alone accumulate 



Dnxn n^n^ nnb Dni)n bv fc<^ ^a ^ 



THE PRACTICAL SIDE. 187 

riches for their successors, but leave them, besides, principles, 
convictions, character, moral courage ! Imagine what do our 
young think, when seeing their parents work during the week, the 
Sabbaths and holidays, in spite of the Decalogue — and sending 
them to school to learn : ''Remember the Sabbath day to keep 
it holy." 

Besides the mentioned historical reasons, so cogent and 
threatening, pleading for the Mosaic rest-day, even practically 
you could not utilize the Sunday for rest and worship. Of 
the few Sunday trials in Europe and America, none has proved 
a success. When people neglect their own Sabbath, they will 
not better observe the Christian rest-day. The Berlin, New 
York, and Chicago-attempts have completely failed. Hoisting 
an insincere flag, one with false colors, those initiators neces- 
sarily became callous to the principles of the true flag. "Ethical" 
indifferentism, apostasy, nihilism, these profit by it. 

Again forget not that the Decalogue rest-day has yet powerful 
friends, even among liberal Christians. Everywhere you will 
find them silently siding with it. There are millions of Uni- 
tarians, of Anti-Trinitarians, of Christians not accepting the 
dicta of the Council of Nicaea. There are millions and tens 
of millions who disclaim Paul's heresies, who prefer the Arian 
or even the Ebionite school, who desire to separate the wheat 
from the later chaff, who aim with Franz Delitzsch at a re- 
vision of the dogmatics, the Christology, asking the aid of 
Israel outside of Trinity. Such a current is to be surmised 
and found among the very founders of the American Com- 
monwealth, since Franklin to this day. Here comes the silent 
tendency to vacate on the Sabbath besides the regular Sun- 
day, generally practiced, in the schools, often in Court, etc. ; 
coming in vogue in Commerce and Economics and in part, in 
industrial establishments ; workingmen's associations, too, are 
drifting in the same direction. Even the large, educated 
masses of Christianity can not help recognizing that the Jewish 
minority have a right to a fair hearing, that Bible and Deca- 
logue plainly point to the seventh day Sabbath, not the Sunday 
of old polytheism. Thus the Sabbath is not irretrievably 
lost. It may soon become a legal holiday, five days weekly 
work should provide for the bodily wants, and two days left 
for mental and moral needs. The great movement for an 



i88 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

eight-hour working day, points that way. The fact is, today's 
workers are overworked. One half of society toils too much 
and is wrecked, and the other half is out of work and wrecked 
by starvation. Let five days weekly be devoted to bodily 
needs and tv/o reserved for mental and spiritual development. 
This may prove to be a solution of the social problem, of 
pauperism and lack of work. Both m.ay have their main source 
in over-work and under-work of the classes and the masses. 
Five work days and two rest-days may cure both, pauperism 
and plutocracy, with ignorance, profanity and vulgarity. Now 
considering the Decalogue, the times, the social aspects, the relig- 
ious problem, all appearing to go in the same direction, all being 
clearly in the right, why despair of reason and logic? Why 
should not mythology at last recede? Why set an example 
of treason to principle, history, ancestors and mankind? Be- 
hold nineteen hundred years ago the Occident, with Christian- 
ity, came nearer the Hebraic Bible and the Decalogue ; twelve 
hundred years ago the Oriental Mohammedans ; four hundred 
years ago Protestantism did, now comes liberal Christianity, 
the Unitarian tendency. You see, mankind moves on, reason 
and right are advancing. Even remorseless Russian and Rou- 
manian anti-Semitism deprecates religious and racial intoler- 
ance, claiming that but economic considerations underlie their 
discriminations. You see the tigers begin to be mitigated. 
They eat up the lamb, not for its creed, but because it is fat 
and weak. Let us unite with the world's liberals and we shall 
be strong, strong by right and by might. To do one's duty is 
a powerful force. You can not give up your doctrine, mono- 
theism, nor your flag, the Sabbath, whilst betraying your mil- 
lennial mission to mankind. 

THEORETICAL MEN ON SUNDAY. 

We have discussed the opinions of practical men concerning 
a Sunday-Sabbath. We shall now quote some of the sugges- 
tions of learned men, citing even rabbinical authorities claimed 
as favoring such a transfer, and shall see that such claims 
are inadequate. There is a well known Talmudical Agada 
purporting that: ''The Sabbath is given unto you, not you to 
the Sabbath."! Upon such fine, pithy Medrashic sayings, Paul 



D3P nac^n np« ,n^t^•b d^jhj Dn« n^ i 



THEORETICAL MEN Ox\ SUNDAY. 189 

and his successors founded their scheme of enfranchising the 
Gentile Christians from the BibHcal holidays and other ob- 
servances, forgetting the radical difference that exists between 
the Law or Halakha, and the Agada, mere homiletics. Is this 
not calculated rather to deter from, than attract to such inno- 
vations?. . .Of the same caliber is another familiar rabbinical 
quotation : "Make thy Sabbath a working-day and be in no 
need of (being assisted by) men." 1 This too is an agadic, 
practical saying, and not meant as a legal maxim. To work 
on the Sabbath as on a week-day, was and remained a crime 
if done willfully and spitefully, to insult the Law. 

The incident, in the time of Moses,^ of a young man collect- 
ing wood on the Sabbath, and being stoned, as a Sabbath- 
breaker, is a striking proof of it. It was severe, a deterring 
example, and only temporary, especially since the man had 
not been forewarned, as required by the rabbinical law in all 
such cases. ^ Nevertheless it shows that the law was and 
remained that week-day work on the Sabbath is forbidden, 
and that poverty is no excuse. In the wars of the Maccabeans 
and later those between Judaea and Rome, defensive war, viz., 
to protect life,"^ was allowed, not offensive v/ar, since any kind 
of work is forbidden on the Sabbath, even on extreme occa- 
sions. 

The Synagogue has a special service on every Monday and 
Thursday morning, with special prayers and readings of part 
of the weekly pericope from the sacred Scroll. This is an 
old arrangement, dating from Judaea, in order to accommodate 
visitors from the country who could not come to town on the 
Sabbath, and give them an opportunity to attend the services 
and readings of the law on those two weekly market and 
court-days. Why then, say some learned Sunday friends, can 
we not do the same Sunday for those who are not able to 
worship on the Sabbath? The answer is, because: The Mon- 
day and Thursday services never supplanted the Sabbath, 
whilst the Sunday service does and will supplant it, as proven 
in the Berlin and Chicago and many other Sunday-Sabbath 



2 (IV M., XV, 32.) Picking up wood. 



190 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

Congregations. At first the regular Sabbath-services were 
deserted, then they were entirely stopped to patronize the 
Sunday worship, at last, when these had fairly ruined the Sab- 
bath, they in turn were neglected and at last are or soon will 
be dispensed with. Who surrenders his own Sabbath, will 
not spare his neighbor's one. Another difference between then 
and now is this : The Judaen country-folk could not attend 
the Sabbath services, just on account of the Sabbath forbid- 
ding traveling and journeying over more than two thousand 
yards. 1 Hence thev could fairly ask for an extra week-day 
service, upon fair moral grounds. While modern men neglect 
the Sabbath and the Synagogue on business grounds, and such 
will not care much for Sunday-services. Facts prove it. No 
doubt, there is no cause for forbidding worship and instruc- 
tions on Sunday, as it is a general vacation day, and should be 
utilized ethically in our hard-pressed times. But if one insists 
on Sunday and refuses any other day or evening for worship, 
there is ground for suspicion that he is catering to the majority, 
not desire of and reverence for religion or instruction. 

Another such idle argument is the second Passover,^ viz: 
The Pentateuch ordaineth for a person who happened to be 
away from home, or levitically unclean on the Passover, the 
fourteenth of the spring month, the anniversary of the Exodus, 
then he shall celebrate it just a month afterwards. *'Why 
then, contend some parties, could we not on similar grounds 
postpone our Sabbath to Sunday? Once done so, every Sun- 
day will be the seventh day counting from Monday !" That 
argument limps. The second Passover was a partial, indi- 
vidual temporary provision, for persons hindered by necessity, 
by vis major from attending Passover, and willing to conform 
to the well established rule. Whilst here people propose to 
disestablish and abrogate, for ever and ever, an institution of 
thirty-five hundred years ; of the grandest dimensions and far- 
reaching results, and fuse it with, or rather supplant it by 
another institution originally and ostensibly established to 
antagonize it, and contradict every thing intended by it. The 
medium comparationis of this parallel is totally lacking and 
the argument is illogical. 

2 IV M., Ix, 10. 



THEORETICAL MEN ON SUNDAY. 191 

It is well known that the Jews celebrate their holidays 
according to the lunar cycle, and since that is shorter than the 
real, solar one, they insert, periodically, an extra 13th month 
in the year,^ to equalize them approximately. Now this offi- 
cial statement, so important for religious life, belonged to the 
duties and privileges of the Chief or Nassi^ the Judge, and the 
Supreme Court in Judaea. About this we read in Bab. San- 
hedrin, ii, a: "One adds an additional thirteenth month only 
with the consent of the Nassi : It happened once to Rab. 
Gamaliel who had gone on state affairs to the ruler of Syria 
and tarried there, that his Court made such a declaration (of a 
leap year of 13 months), expressly, conditionally: If consented 
to by Rabban Gamaliel. He soon returned and declared:'' I 
do agree to it," then that became law. Such a leap year was 
decreed only when indispensable, as on account of the bad 
roads, defective bridges, decayed Passover-ovens, or far-away 
Jewish pilgrims for Jerusalem.. .One shall enact no leap-year 
on account of the kids, lambs and pigeons being yet too tender 
(for sacrificial purposes), but such may be made an accessory 
ground for a leap-year. So R. Yanai says in the name of R. 
Simeon, son of Gamaliel, the Nassi, who wrote to the Congre- 
gations : "We inform you that the pigeons and lambs are 
too tender and spring time has not yet arrived. So I was 
pleased to increase this year with 30 days."^ Here we see 
that a leap-year, with postponement of the entire festive cal- 
endar of the year, was declared by the Patriarch, on grounds 
perfectly human and realistic, in order to make it convenient 
to the people to pilgrim to the Temple and Jerusalem. "Why 
then should we moderns, our learned antagonists could say, not be 
allowed to transfer the Sabbath to the more convenient Sun- 
day?' The answer is the same as before mentioned: Because 
then it was not a transfer, but a re-adjustment on an actual 



iMaimonides Yad, on New Moon. 

n^^n nx nn^yi r^^ub nn^^i fc^moss^ jd^sj^ ^vn nitj>"i b)^'b i^n^ 

We abbreviate the following, containing the theme, there: 

^D^3i N-ibmn .|i3b i:nj« px;ni» ...n:sj^:) ivo ^nx .d^k^di D^njn 



192 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

calculation, and putting it aright, harmonizing the lunar cycle 
so as to come up to the practically important solar one. Such 
a computation and promulgation could properly be made only 
by the nation's Supreme Court and its head, the conditions 
when, where, why and the frequency of such intercalations 
and many more greater and minor considerations had to be 
taken into account. Whilst our Mosaic Sabbath, is clear, 
doubted by none, and subject to no fluctuations. Now to post- 
pone it and allow it to be supplanted by Sunday, the originally 
polytheistic day, and later, the symbolic institution of an 
avowedly opposite doctrine and religion — that holds no com- 
parison with the leap-year case invoked. There, again, is the 
question of a temporary enactment, inserting the intercalary 
month when the Sanhedrin thought it fit and proper. In our 
case it is to be a permanent and definite weekly transfer from 
one day to another, from one certain platform to its very dia- 
metrically opposite one ; the surrender of the grand, Mono- 
theistic Institution to a Trinitarian one ! So tor instance, the 
Rabbis allow the prophet to temporarily postpone a biblical 
commandment, as Elijah sacrificed on Karmel, on the ground 
of expediency :^ But if he dare cancel it definitely, or dare 
change it totally to another one, then he is declared an im- 
postor, a false prophet and death is his punishment. 

In Bably. Sabbath 69b. we read.^ Rab Hunah said: *'When 
one was long on the road or in the wilderness and knew not 
when the Sabbath is, then he shall count six days and the 
seventh is his day of Sabbath. Chiyah says : He observes (as 
his Sabbath) one day and then counts six working days. In 
what do they differ? One opines: as the creation, (six crea- 
tive days and the seventh is rest), and the other: as Adam did 
(His advent was on the close of Friday, and at once he ob- 
served the Sabbath and then counted six working days). Raba 
says : Every day he shall work for his livelihood, except on 
that day (as his own Sabbath) : Shall he die on that day? 
No, he shall prepare on the preceding day for two days. But 



Ps. 119-126 ^imin )^Z}r] i"b n)^vb ny 1 
D''»"' ntj'K^ njitt ,n3K^ ino^^ ynr i^^xi i3n»3 ik ^nna i^n» n\i 2 
'D^o^ nt^E^ njini nns dv -lOK^n noit^ si -12 k^\t .nns nv id^d) 



THEORETICAL MEN ON SUNDAY. 193 

possibly just that day was the Sabbath? Well, let him work 
every day for his livelihood, without any exception and that 
day (his own Sabbath) let him distinguish by the consecrated 
Cups at its beginning and its close." Here, we see — our 
learned antagonist would say — that in case of doubt as to the 
right time, any one day after or before six working days, will 
do, w^hy then should w^e not do the same in this din and bustle 
of the struggle lor existence? The reply we have given above 
holds good here too. The Talmud attends there to rare cases, 
to individuals, astray and ignorant of the right day, and ad- 
vises them in such a dilemma ; now such a casualty can not 
be made a rule, not a precedence for an entire community in nor- 
mal conditions, w^ell knowing the date and calendar, to change 
definitely and permanently the seventh day for another, a day 
of a diametrically opposite character. Remember Again Some 
will barter the seventh day for the first of the week; and some, 
in Mohammedan countries, for Friday, the sixth of the week; 
and some, for other reasons good in China, for Wednesday or 
Thursday. That can make a day for self-indulgence, not a 
Sabbath-day for sanctification. Israel having been a unit in 
the dispersion, for fifteen hundred years, will be broken up, 
simply, by such a splitting and isolation. The forward Sunday- 
Sabbath Jews will tear away from the mass of the Jews, amalga- 
mate, surely, with the dominant denominations and at last be 
swallow^ed up and lost among the surrounding majorities; 
That is what we have to face when tampering with our re- 
ligious bases. The stages of such a result are already, dire- 
fully, visible. Such people begin with both, Saturday and 
Sunday services, they may soon pass to Sunday-Sabbath serv- 
ices and a Rabbi ; then proceed to Sunday and a Unitarian min- 
ister, then to Sunday and universalist speaker, to land at last 
at ethical culture, singing unions, in indiiferentism, Mammon- 
worship and sensuous materialism, the famous doctrine of 
Man a Machine. Other minor legislatic objections we easily 
pass in silence. The Sunday- Sabbath may thus prove to be 
the Rubicon passage, the bridge leading from Judaism out 
into the Gentile camp. The grand-children of such ancestors 
may soon scoff and sneer at those old benighted, "damned" 
Sabbath-Jew^s !". . .The iron logic of things is: If you accept 
the flag, you must take with it too, its principle. Sunday means 
Non-Judaism.. Considering the infinitessimal Jewish minority. 



194 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

to take Sunday in the service of Judaism, is just as feasible 
as : to dash down a steep mountain, with impetuous, youthful 
stellions — in order to avoid the abyss below. Look to such recent 
Sunday-Sabbath attempts, here and there. At first people flocked 
to see its workings, it was a marvelous success ! After a genera- 
tion its results are, indififerentism, conversion, nihilism. 

Still we must not close our eyes to the reverse-sides, as the 
ostrich hides its head, when pursued by an enemy. There is 
no denial that the social conditions are threatening. Our Non- 
Jewish American fellow-citizens are all in business, competi- 
tion is pressing and a great majority of our coreligionists 
believe they can not afford to vacate on the Sabbath, the holi- 
days and besides, the Sundays ! The Mosaic Sabbath in fact 
is neglected, hence no Sabbath, no worship, no religion, no 
instruction ; less of morals, and of intellectuality ; wild chase 
for money and sensuality, that means decadence ; an awful 
prospect for the once "kingdom of priests and holy nation." — 
Under such conditions to try Sunday-Sabbath is tantamount 
to strike off the head — in order to cure the patient ! Why not 
rather try, for worship, the Friday evening, or the Sabbath 
afternoon? Why not begin insisting on the Sabbath-rest in 
the sanctum of the family? Until relief will come from other 
quarters, the advance of liberal Christianity towards the Deca- 
logue? Until the Jews will gather up courage to fully restore 
the Sabbath of the Sinaic Religion? There is a way where 
there is a will ! 

''No ! replicates the practical sociologist. No ! there can be 
no will when there is no way out of the dire dilemma. Insist- 
ing on the seventh-day-rest makes the Jew ominously clash with 
the hundred-fold non-Jewish majority! We not only lose their 
good will, but also our family's daily bread. To vacate two- 
days weekly, in busy America, will infallibly ruin us commer- 
cially, and soon alas, socially. It will re-erect the old pulled 
down Ghetto-walls. It will condemn us to a perpetual gohith, 
exile. And for what purpose? To whose profit? Our modern 
Sunday rest-day is a purely civil institution. It aims solely at 
man's best bodily and moral interests, not at credos, religion 
and metaphysics. No body identifies it with Trinity or Unity, 
with God's creation or the ascension ; The ancient rabbis added 
an entire month at will to the year, changing all the holidays 



THEORETICAL MEN ON SUNDAY. 195 

for small considerations . . . Why can we not do a day in such 
stress? Man needs a day for recuperation, recreation and men- 
tal elevation ; the metaphysical or the religio-symbolical and 
the historical back-grounds and considerations have now lost 
their import. God rests not on the Sabbath, He being the Active 
Principle; and each planet having its own day, the Sabbath 
is but earthly. God requires worship on any day. A life of 
duty is the highest divine service. We, men, need a Rest. 
Why not take it when practically offered by society, the State, 
by the immense majority, giving scope to really universal 
peace and recuperation and, at the same time bridging over the 
chasms of sect, sad history and old prejudices? All coincides here 
for peace and good will, nothing is left out except, mostly, arti- 
ficial symbolism, petty, priestly Shiholeth! . . . . Here stands 
Hercules at the cross-ways. The Talmud refers to the prophet 
Elijah (tiqu) the settling of such hard cases. In the messianic 
times when myth will vanish and reason rule supreme, then this 
difficulty will easily be removed. 

In our discussion of the second Decalogue, in Deuteronomy, 
we have enlarged on this topic and shall here add but this : 
That in extreme circumstances Israel would find some clue to 
the hard solution of the difficult problem even in Bible and 
Talmud. So HI M. 18.5 reads: "Ye shall observe my statutes 
and my judgments which a man shall do and live by them." 
This the Rabbis (Sanhedrin. . .and oft elsewhere) rigorously 
and literally interpret: "My statutes and judgments which a 
man shall perform in order to live, not to die." This means 
that the Mosaic legislation aims at rendering man happy and 
hail, not to shorten his life and render him miserable. There- 
fore the Rabbis enacted, that in times of distress when "the 
Jew is forced to choose between trespassing over any com- 
mandments or death, then in self-preservation, lie shall tres- 
pass and save his life;" except: Idolatry, incest and murder, 
these three alone he shall not commit, but rather die. All the 
other Commandments, he may neglect in order to save his 
life." If now our Sunday-Sabbath advocates would seriously 
succeed to prove that the Jew, in this twentieth century, in 
the civilized part of the world, has come to such a pass, viz. : 
that the observation of the Mosaic seventh-day-Sabbath would 
make him starve, then there would be ground for a plea. 



196 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

So says Maimonides Guide III, 41 : ''Know that concern- 
ing transgressions, the distinction is fourfold : firstly is : com- 
pelled transgression, by vis major; secondly by mistake and 
involuntarily; thirdly intentionally; fourthly high-handedly. 
Now, compelled transgression is not punishable and there is 
no sin here whatever. Unintentional transgression implies sin 
and requires atonement, but there is no punishment for such. 
Intentional transgression entails the due, prescribed punish- 
ment. Whilst he who transgresses spitefully, high-handedly, 
publicly, willfully, to show his contempt and dissent from the 
Thora, his avowed antagonism to the Law, he is termed a 
blasphemer and deserves all the rigor of the Statutes." 

This explains why the Spanish Marranos, compelled to go 
to Church and outwardly to conform to the dominant religion, 
called themselves Onossim, viz. : compelled to conversion, not 
voluntary apostates. Submitting to force, by soldiers and 
monks, they believed to be excused and not incur the punish- 
ment of idolatry ; at the same time assuming that the Church 
of Torquemada and of Ferdinand and Isabella were not idola- 
trous, an assumption which may well be contested. Original 
Christianity surely is not, image worship is. Now when the idols 
and images will be abolished, with their myths and prejudices, 
then even the hard Sabbath problem will be easily solved. 

APPEAL FOR THE SABBATH. 

Not trying to raise the veil of the future, leaving human destiny 
to Providence, let us conclude : We have seen that Sunday is 
a relic of ancient polytheism, originally devoted to the Sun-god 
of mythology ; that its later ideas are : Man-god, divine incarna- 
tion, God dying on the Cross, to retrieve the world, spoiled by 
the devil, and man corrupted by original sin ; next it means 
resurrection, ascension, atonement, trinity or God three and still 
one, redeeming by his blood, and his crucifixion a fraction of 
humanity and abandoining its major part to eternal Hell-fires, 
etc. Sunday-Sabbath is thus the first ring of that gradually 
forged, dogmatic, cast-iron chain that begins with the triune 
divinity and closes with infallibility, fatalism and eternal hell. 
Whilst the Sabbath of the Decalogue is, a priori, the living pro- 
test against all that. It teaches God-One, pure Spirit, Creator 
of the best possible universe. Eternal, All-powerful and All- 



APPEAL FOR THE SABBATH. 197 

benign ; it teaches man free and responsible, capable of working 
out his own salvation, by choosing right and doing the good. 
This represents Sabbath and that does Sunday. Now, well 
acquainted with the platform of each, compare and choose ! See, 
American Jews, whether you can shift the Sabbath to the Sunday? 

There is but one alternative, viz: Whosoever accepts trinity, 
atonement and resurrection, a man-god and incarnation, a world 
corrupted by the devil, and man eternally ruined by original sin 
since Adam's fall — whosoever declares that Israel's martyrdom 
for these last 15 centuries has been a folly, an ostentation and a 
crime,that he should now yield to the above ideas, not care for 
reason, conviction, truth and their consequences, give in to the 
vociferation of Anti-Semitism and pass over to the majority — 
let him accept the Sunday-Sabbath with its accompanying plat- 
form. But whosoever accepts the doctrine of God-One, incor- 
poreal, pure-Spirit, eternal. Creator of the w^orld, for good, and of 
man for freedom, virtue and humanely possible happiness ; that 
Israel has a mission, a mission divine. and socially humane, all 
important to mankind ; that he has suffered martyrdom for the 
great interests of mankind; that his religion should descend to 
his children and they continue to teach and exemplify those doc- 
trines until, not only the chosen few, but the Gentile masses will 
accept and act upon them ; whosoever acknowledges as his credo : 
Hear, O Israel, God is one — he will not yield to the Sunday- 
Sabbath, the seal of: God the father, the Son and the Holy 
Ghost; he will adhere to the Sabbath of the Decalogue, the 
symbol and th Berith of God, One, sole Creator and Providence. 
He will cling to principle, common sense, conscience and the great 
ethical interests of mankind; he will abide by the Sabbath of the 
Ten Commandments, of Sinai, without change, compromise or 
abridgement ! 

American Israel ! Having struggled through these last dreary 
fifteen centuries, having powerfully assisted to liberalize western 
mankind, living now as citizens of this free United States, built 
upon biblical, non-sectarian grounds, where State and Church are 
rigidly separated, where race, creed and conscience are not to be 
interfered with, — shall we, now and here, yield to what our ances^ 
tors did not in the Ghetto, in poverty and cruel persecution? 
Brethren, it is your duty, your interest and your honor to stand 



198 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

by your millennial, your own flag, by your own Sabbath ! Breth- 
ren, show your children that you have a conscience and a prin- 
ciple, that you are a nationality standing on historic grounds; 
not for business, but for moral^ rational and humanitarian inter- 
ests ; that you stand for principle ! Reformers, what-for all 
reforms, if one should not care for either form, essence or prin- 
ciple? Orthodox, what use of all the old forms, if one neglects 
the most venerable, practical institution of Mosaism, symbolizing 
its highest ethics and doctrines ! Sisters in Israel, in your homes 
with your young ones, ''Remember the Sabbath day to keep it 
holy !" Begin restoring the Sabbath at your own hearth, make 
your house a sanctuary by adhering to your religion ! Orthodox, 
here is the oldest form of Judaism ; cling to it ! Reformers, here 
is the most pregnant doctrine, the oldest, the newest and the 
latest reform : Observe the Sabbath day ! Women in Judah, your 
husbands advance the plea of competition, bread, iron necessity. 
What hinders you from having the Sabbath kept in the family- 
sanctuary, so sweet and lovely in this land of freedom, but vul- 
garized and profaned by the lack of Sabbath and holidays ! 
Sisters in Israel, you have ever been the great hope, the anchor 
of Salvation of your people. When the billows of persecution 
and prejudice raged most violently against it, your noble mothers 
affronted with magnanimous courage, all the hatred, cruelty and 
misery of long, dark, barbarous ages. Your sex was the immov- 
able rock amid the raging dreary sea of oppression. Your noble 
mothers stood there unshaken and undismayed, the anchors of the 
tottering ship of Judah, setting an heroic example to their hus- 
bands and sons, how to fight for a great cause. Ye present daugh- 
ters of such mothers, ye descendants of Miriam, Deborah, Jael, 
Judith, Maccabean women, show that you have not degenerated 
from your ancestors. Brothers and sisters of Israel, remember 
your history, your task, your ethical interests and stand by them. 
Your part now is as great as ever your ancestors' was. The 
present crisis is ominous, an attack outside and inside the ranks. 
Brothers and Sisters, Reformers and Orthodox, you know, Anti- 
Semitism outside. But remember that inside, the havoc which 
infidelity, lucre, coarse materialism, ignorance, frivolity, time- 
serving and mean make-shift, open or in disguise, have already 
wrought in our ranks. There is no use mincing and hushing, 
palliating and sembling. The signs of decadence stare into the 



APPEAL FOR THE SABBATH. 199 

eyes : Scepticism and immorality, irreverence to God and to 
parents, to honor and to virtue, neglect of true culture, serious 
study and noble ideality; the mad chase for Mammon and sensu- 
ality, at the risk even of decency, health and economical welfare. 
Brothers and Sisters ! American Israel has come to a crisis. The 
Sabbath is the high-water mark. Stand by your flag. It is a 
great and awful turnpoint, this alternative ! It is not the cause 
of a mere form, an old observance. No, your flag is at stake. It 
is the question : Shall you change the flag at the imminent risk 
of endangering the leading principles ? American Israel, cling to 
your flag, it represents both, the doctrine of Israel and the civili- 
zation of mankind. Will and you can ! 



200 

VI. Study.-mUAh PIETY AND REVERENCE. 

We have seen that the Decalogue is the Organic Law of Israel. 
It is of mankind. It begins with settling his firm state basis upon 
the God-belief. As the universe has God as its author, even so 
the State, the citizen and the people of Israel, God is their author, 
liberator and Providence : *'I am thv God, who has freed thee 
from the yoke of Egypt. Thou shalt have no other gods. 
Thou shalt not utter his name frivolously." That is the pre- 
amble to the Organic Law. From that it proceeds to insti- 
tute the Sabbath for man, the bridge and connecting link 
between the Deity and humanity, the epoch when the divine 
transfuses the human, sanctifies and elevates it. Now with the 
fifth Commandment the organic Constitution arrives at the human 
society. It establishes firmly the family as the rock, the corner- 
stone and unit, from which society, people and state gradually 
develop. What is the chief condition, sine quae non, of a solid 
society ? A solid family ; when the family is pure and sound, the 
people and the country are ; if not, not. What constitutes a 
solid, strong family? The correct relation of its members, that 
between parent and child : Honor and reverence thy father and 
thy mother, that thy days ixi the land given thee, may endure." 
(II M., 20-12.) Wilt thou man, live long and prosperous ? Rev- 
erence and cherish thy parents ! Wilt thou stay permanently 
in thine own country ? Respect and honor thy parents ! Here is 
a wholesome lesson of wise conservatism. Wilt thou prolong and 
sweeten thy own days ? Then, prolong and sweeten those of thy 
predecessors. Do that from motives of simple prudence ; do it 
from elevated moral motives, gratitude for good received, rever- 
ence for progenitors, elders, teachers, patrons. Reverence them 
as you do God in heaven, they are your Providence on earth. 
The Rabbis place such reverence among those leading duties, 
"the principal of which is reserved for the hereafter, and the 
fruit for this world ;" or the principal abides with the future 
prosperity of society and the fruit for the individual and the 
family." This great duty is enjoined time and again in the Pen- 
tateuch, Talmud and Codices ;^ it is put frequently in juxtaposi- 



III M., XX, 15, 17. —Ill M., XIX, 3, and XX, 9.--V M., XXVII, 16, etc. 
Kidushin 30b, 40a. Tur Joreh Dea Kibed Ab., 240-241. 



FILIAL PIETY AND REVERENCE. 201 

tion with the Sabbath rest. The death penahy, even stoning by 
the Congregation is set upon its transgression. Gross disrespect 
is criminally punished and even gross disobedience.^ We must 
not forget that these laws were enacted thousands of years ago 
and may have been the view of thousands more, in the Orient, 
at the very dawn of societies, rude times, later mitigated by the 
Rabbis.2 Nevertheless the principle, due respect, reverence, and 
even obedience when young, to parents, holds good to this day. 
It is a perfectly natural, psychological instinct strikingly illus- 
trated by a well known tale : An irreverent, adult son bade his 
own little boy to fetch up from the cellar an old, mouldy blanket, 
to cover his sire in the garret. The youngster brought up half 
of the blanket. "Why did you not bring the whole?" asked the 
father. ''The other half I reserved for you, Papa, when old," 
replied the boy. — Youth is much prone to exaggerate the value of 
youth and underrate that of age, wisdom, experience. Hence 
the frequency of the commandment of filial piety and reverence 
for parents. No doubt the parents owe their children just as 
much in love and support as the children owe reverence and obe- 
dience to them. But parental tenderness and selfsacrifice is by 
far louder and deeper seated than filial piety. Both are natural 
instincts, but of unequal strength; because the first is far more 
important for bringing up the race. Parental love needs no long 
legal repetitions. Without any express law, parents do daily 
sacrifice themselves to their young. Not always do so the young 
towards parents. The cause is plain. Each present generation 
awaits its future from the coming generation, not from the past 
one. Each individual desires its own perpetuation and this can 
be attained only by offspring carefully reared. Nature, there- 
fore, implanted deepest the parental instinct. We delight in the 
success of our children, just as in our own. Whilst the off- 
spring's love and reverence towards parents must be cultivated 
by society and by law commanded, or else it may be neglected, 
since man is wholly ingrossed by the future, and has little time 
left for the past. And nevertheless, though less than parental 
love, filial piety is important to society; for if children will be 
generally forgetful and disrespectful to parents, then nobody will 



IV M. XX, 18. The rebellious son. 

2Sanhedrin, 71a, renders death penalty nigh impossible for the rebel- 
lious son. 



202 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

care to be a parent, to have a family, provide and care for chil- 
dren who, thus, will perish from lack of parental love. "Honor 
thy parents that thou mayest live long," is deep psychology and 
sociology, not only ethics. Besides the natural bent and instinct, 
parents must also be hopeful that, in rearing a family, they grow 
for themselves friends, companions and defenders for their old 
age, who will stand up for them and fight their battles when weak 
with age. To such parental resource alludes the excellent verse, 
Ps. 127.5: Happy is the man who thus provides his quiver (with 
children). They will plead his cause in the city-gate.^ No 
doubt this motive is selfish, but the true Legislator never despises 
and neglects rational and humane selfishness, a leading constitu- 
ent of human nature : ''The Thora is given to man, not to angels." 
True idealism must be founded in realism, or it is a sham. 

THE FAMILY. 

Filial piety has ever been a leading trait of the Jewish family. 
We have frequently alluded to it in our Scriptural writings. We 
saw it in the family of the patriarchs, in the generation of the 
Exodus, and it was reverently noticed in history ever since, down 
to the Ghetto and the 19th century passed by. When our fathers 
lived in the European backlanes, in the gloom, poverty and 
wretchedness of ages gone by, there was one gem illuminating 
and cheering that long dark night of exile. That was the Jewish 
family, its sweet intimacy, the love and devotion of the parents, the 
adherence of the several fraternal members, the respect, profound 
veneration and obedience of the children towards the parents and 
the love of the parents to the children, the mutual devotion of hus- 
band and wife, the sweet, noble relation and the inviolable 
sacredness of the marital union, the simple biblical man and wife 
building up the family; he the toiling breadwinner, she the 
patient, cheering helpmeet and assistant, both eating the bread of 
innocence with tears and resignation, posing the solid cornerstone 
of the Ghetto-Society with a family reared in virtue and strong in 
practical life. As a beakon-light on the tempestuous ocean, the 
Jewish family, the parental selfsacrifice and the filial piety illu- 
mined and cheered the gloom of the Jewish Ghetto. 



iSo recently the great financier, Harriman, declared children a cause 
of practical success. 



THE FAMILY IN AMERICA. 203 

American youth, let not that noble gem be plucked from your 
family diadem. Let us be frank: There is something in our 
modern democracy, liberty, equality and easy going ways, which 
tends towards marring, paling and deteriorating that millenial 
trait, reverence; which causes carelessness, impertinence and 
insubordination to invade the family-hearth. Beware of that! 
Preserve that sacred gem, that precious heir-loom, intact in your 
houses, guard it as your eyeball. It is more costly and precious 
than all our gobelins, brussels, velvets and laces. Let us remem- 
ber that all we are and all we have, our blood and our force, our 
name, fame and standing, our education and station in life, our 
powers and capacities physical and mental, all, come from our 
parents, we are simply a younger copy, their rejuvenation, the 
result of their bodies and minds, their labors, results and self- 
sacrifices. We are their bodily immortality, their glory and 
sweetest, noblest hope, their regeneration and second self. 

Moreover, remember that your parents are European emi- 
grants, men and women who have left their old home, associates 
and friends, the green spot of their cradle and the sacred hillocks 
of their fathers' ashes. They have left all and come hither, 
friendless, speechless, penniless, cheerless, to fight here anew the 
bitter battle of life, to build up here a home, a community, a 
schoolhouse for you, American born youths ! Can you do less 
than ''Reverence your father and mother, that your days may 
be long and successful upon this your new God-given native 
land?" 

Let me quote here the following in intimate connection with 
our theme : Americanism in France, by Jules Simon, deploring 
the Influence of Western Ideas. 

The opinions of M. Jules Simon, the great French writer, 
philosopher and ex-minister of education, says the New York 
Tribune, 1892, are always read with interest and profit. He is a 
friend of America and an admirer of her history and many of 
her institutions. But he does not hesitate, while praising 
American virtues, to throw a strong searchlight upon Ameri- 
can vices. 

"I love the Americans," he said recently in an article con- 
tributed to a Parisian journal, ''but I do not love Americanism 
so well. 



204 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

*'In 1492 Europeans discovered America and transported 
Europe to American shores. Americans, having flourished and 
become very powerful in the course of four centuries, have 
invaded Europe and transported America here. 

"The American having no past, always looks toward the 
future. He is a traveler who does not believe that his journey 
is ever finished. In marching ahead of us, he accustoms us to 
move on, too, and for that I am thankful. He induces us also 
to accustom ourselves to lighter luggage, but for that I am 
less grateful. Gladly would I lighten material baggage, but 
sentimental baggage and burdens I renounce with reluctance. 
I believe that the twentieth century, which I shall never see, 
will have its merits; but the sixteenth, the seventeenth and the 
eighteenth centuries, which I know, were beautiful enough. 

''During these centuries now past there was an institution 
which, I acknowledge, has been retarded in its progress, but 
which made life very sweet and very pure ; it was the family. 

"One lived then at home. One died in the house where he 
was born. One closed the eyes of his father. There was no 
corner in the blessed home which did not recall a caress or a 
precept of the mother of the family. She was always the 
model and the apostle of virtue. She was venerated, and on 
her account her whole sex was venerated. There was no 
question then of lax morals, of crimes or passion. The law, 
respect, love received and given, honor and probity inherited 
and treasured, were shields against crime and against error. 
People said of a man : 'He was a man well born ; he was a 
man well educated.' One aspired to become the founder of a 
family. 

"I picture to myself a happy and virtuous family of that 
past time. It is respectable and not too austere. It is acquainted 
with the pleasures of life, but they are pleasures in accord with 
duty and self-respect. It cultivates science and good literature, and 
pays no heed to frivolous literature. The art cultivated in 
such a family is only that grand art which awakens ideas of 
eternity in the human mind. The members of the family re- 
ceive and associate with only polished people, having the same 
beliefs and similar tastes. They have the gift of tears, as well 
as that of smiles, because they feel strong enough to acknowl- 
edge that they are moved to enthusiasm and rapture by heroic 
deeds and beautiful works. 



THE FAMILY IN AMERICA. 205 

"And again I fancy a family of persons pressed and busy, 
who disdain everything that is not new and trample upon 
everything which might interfere with their progress. The 
father and mother have merely consented to marry one an- 
other; the marriage is a matter of arrangement, business or 
convenience. As honest people they observe the binding stip- 
ulations until they find them too strong, too heavy. They then 
announce in a straightforward way that they wish to separate, 
and ask a magistrate to put an end to their union, thus declar- 
ing publicly that they love in other places. The children do 
not bear the yoke of obedience as in that age when it was 
absolutely necessary that they be guided and protected. Even 
in this happy age, however, they must also be supported, and 
this necessity is the principal band which binds them to their 
parents. At the age of one and twenty years they are eman- 
cipated by law, unless they have already had recourse to the 
courts, which can shorten the time of servitude in the family. 
The strong and holy bond of former years has given place to 
the marriage of adventure, facilitated by the divorce, and to a 
guardianship made easy by the boarding school and by the 
laws governing the emancipation from family control. 

"Again, while the family exists as a family — menaced by 
divorce and these laws — it is often diminished as much as pos- 
sible, in accordance with the decrees of fashion. The child is 
first sent to a nurse, and afterward, whether boy or girl, is 
placed in a boarding school. The father and mother have a 
house where they receive their friends. The father deserts it 
for the club. He finds in the club the solitude which he desires ; 
games of chance, if they be to his liking, and all the luxuries 
which he cannot have at home. He even goes there to take his 
meals. With the day at the Exchange and the evening with 
his friends, what becomes of his wife? She calls upon her 
neighbors ; she makes her own plans ; she prepares herself by 
degrees for a divorce. 

"If we are to believe the enemies of the great American 
republic, there are the great hotels there as auxiliaries of the 
clubs, hotels which are worlds within themselves. They have 
their good points ; it is possible to live within them and escape 
scrutiny, and they offer a great variety of entertainment. One 
may sleep there and thus dispense with the hypocrisy of having 



2o6 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE 

his own fireside. Monsieur and Madame may have their own 
rooms there and eat at the table d'hote. It is not necessary, 
even, that the rooms adjoin one another. 

"We must remember the dinners also, as well as the clubs 
and hotels. I do not speak of official dinners, of the grand 
dinners given for display, of the small dinners for friends. . . . 
The dinners of which I speak are an institution which grows daily 
and which furnish the married man, who wishes to live as a bache- 
lor, with excuses for not remaining at home. 

"There are more dinners," continues M. Simon, "than one 
can count. There are the annual dinner of the Institute, the 
monthly dinner of the Academy of Fine Arts, the dinner of 
the Economists, the dinner of the Society of Political Econ- 
omy, the dinner of the men of letters, the dinner of the Univer- 
sal Literary Association, the dinner of the Alpine Club, the 
dinner of the Celtic Club. . . ; it would fill the columns of a news- 
paper to recount them all. . . What an excuse to live away from 
home, to have no home, to be a husband only occasionally ... I 
know that these customs do not preclude a Pasteur and Alexandre 
Dumas ; but the former custom did not preclude a Descartes or 
Corneille. Emancipation is necessary, but too much is not neces- 
sary. If a man wishes to grow, he should not detach himself from 
the world. He can do nothing without the aid of others. . .The 
master of the future is the past." 

REVERENCE TO COUNTRY. 

Our Fifth Commandment transgresses the family, it has a 
wider scope ; it does not refer only to the relation of the bodily 
parent and child, it alludes also to parental love and filial piety 
of another kind and a vaster compass, to reverence towards 
our spiritual parents, towards God and religion, country, na- 
tionality, historical associations, teachers, ethical models and 
ideals. We have spoken of the reverence due to parents. After 
our parents, the next reverence, American youth, we owe, is 
to our Country. Honor the United States country, cherish 
the United States people, respect its laws, and institutions, 
uphold its humanitarian principles with its Union, its Consti- 
tution and its grand preamble, securing life, liberty and pur- 
suit of happiness to all its inhabitants, guaranteeing freedom 



REVERENCE TO COUNTRY. 207 

of conscience, of government by and for the people, equality 
of races and separation of Church and State; building up, for 
the first time in history, a great country and a powerful nation, 
without a dynasty, aristocracy and dominant church, upon the 
basis of one God, one moral and political law, one human race, 
equal rights and duties to all nationalities and creeds, sexes, 
masses and classes. Love your fellow-citizens as your fellow- 
men; let old prejudices of creed, origin and race vanish, as the 
ice melting before the genial sun-rays. The American soil is 
not stained with Jewish martyrs' blood ; the statute book is free 
of sectarian discriminations. Uphold the principles and the 
Constitution of this your vast and hopeful country. No use 
hushing! There are tendencies to the contrary, do not let 
them prevail. Qualify yourselves as good and patriotic citi- 
zens. Be peaceful and lawabiding, careful in the selection of 
your trade and avocations. Do each your utmost to be a useful 
factor in your community. In this way: "honor thy American 
fatherland and thy mother, the United States. Contribute to 
her prosperity : 'that your days may be long upon the soil God 
has given you." 

REVERENCE TO ISRAEL AND JUDAISM. 

Older yet is the reverence you owe to your father Israel and 
your mother religion. You are justly happy in being native 
Americans. But you should feel no less proud of being native 
American Jews. You are citizens of the country of Washing- 
ton and Franklin, of Lincoln and Garfield. But look still fur- 
ther back, you hail from the country of the hoary Hebraic 
Patriarchs and of the Prophets, mankind's ethical teachers. 
Your ancestors were bodily fed with the wheat and the milk 
of Karmel and Bashan, your own bodies are with those of the 
Hudson, the Ohio and the Mississippi, whilst your souls are 
nurtured with the ideas hailing, both, from Horeb, Karmel and 
Moriah and from the Themes, the Vistula, the Pyrenees and 
chiefly the Teutonic academies. Be proud of your double 
historic origin. All counted up, it is the most illustrious in 
mankind's development. You belong to a race well tried in 
the crucible of four thousand years' battles, and of fifteen cen- 
turies' cruel persecutions. If it is true that the fittest survive, 
your race must count among the best and the strongest. The 



2o8 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

civil law declares you of age at 21 to 25 years. But the Law 
of^ Judaism declares your majority at 13 years. At 13 begins 
your responsibility, for well-born souls are prematurely ripe.^ 
Remember well your race's patent of nobility, the Decalogue 
and the several reverences it imposes upon you, by virtue of 
being the descendants of those strong men and women who, 
camping in the wilderness, stood around Sinai and listened to 
its proclamation. There are great historic moments when men 
stand nearer to heaven, w^hen a question to Providence is free, 
when they can take a glimpse behind the curtains of destiny, 
w^hen they are, in some sense, the moulders of their destiny. 
Such was the hour of the promulgation of the Decalogue which 
stamped you as the Providential Israel,^ the champions of the 
divine in the human, the priestly people and holy nation, de- 
voted to the mental and moral interests of mankind. Remem- 
ber, Juda, thy calling ! 

American Jews ! fight on the battles of your people and 
your doctrine. They are the identical battles and interests of 
entire mankind, of human civilization. Your people is nothing 
else but their advance guard, and "your doctrine hails from 
Zion, the word of God coming from Jerusalem (Is. II, 3). Carry 
aloft their banner, their triumph is mankind's triumph. Let 
not worldly consideration, wealth, honors, majority, example 
tempt you to desertion. In the minority the divine aflatus 
breathes. Nobody ever gained by apostasy. Did Borne 
Heine, Cassel, Gans gain? Compare their, alas, tarnished fame 
with that of Moses Mendelssohn. Cling to your flag. Be a 
good Jew and it will not harm you to be a Jew. Thousands 
of converts would with tears in the eyes, corroborate that ex- 
perience. The king of Prussia for long urged Meyerbeer to be 
converted. Meekly he replied : "Majesty, do you believe I 
shall then write better music?" No, genius creates inspiration, 
apostasy dries it up. 

Well are times somewhat brighter : bigotry is more political 
than fanatical. The wheel and the rack, the torture and anto- 
da-fes are no more in use. Yet modern anti-Semitism is not 
more merciful. The Russian pogroms prove it. The past 
century has gained for the western Jew his civil and political 



iLes ames bien nees n'attendent pas les annee.. (Ru,cine Athalie.) 
2Thou wrestledst with gods and men and conqueredst. (I M. 32, 29.) 



REVERENCE TO ISRAEL AND JUDAISM. 2og 

emancipation, but the social one is yet to be conquered. The 
prejudices of origin, race and sect have not died out. To ex- 
aggerate the Hebrew's defects, to beHttle his virtues, to curtail 
his chances, to take advantage of his isolation, to ostracise 
him, push him aside, arouse the envy and ill will of noble, 
priest, Philistine and mob against him, to fan up and stir up the 
dying embers of fanaticism against him, is not yet out of 
fashion. The Jew of the twentieth century is not yet bedded 
upon roses, he must yet be of gold to pass for silver. Such are 
the drawbacks of every minority. But they are compensated 
by many advantages. "The divine spirit breathes in the minor- 
ity," justly said Matthew Arnold. A minority strong enough 
to resist, will in time, acquire a tremendous majority force and 
become the chariot of history. The Hebrew minority has 
gained, by patience, great elasticity of body and mind. They 
live in all climes, identify and appropriate to themselves the 
best of all civilizations, control better their capacities and 
passions, have a higher standard of morality, more energy, so- 
briety, thrift, working-habits. That compensates for the disad- 
vantage of being a minority. 

Well, young friends ! reverence your nationality and your 
doctrine, conquer your full equality, raise the social ban, and 
render to the name of Jew its pristine meaning, its sterling 
ring, as the oldest son of civilization. ^ Onwards, struggle for 
Israel's doctrine, ethnical and social position and recognition; 
with courage, forbearance and patience ; disarm your antag- 
onists by being a superior minority, by capacity, honesty and 
forgiveness ; by modesty, industry and frugality. Fight with 
the arms of sympathy, science, logic and common sense. Ap- 
peal to the common sense, to the conscience of your more en- 
lightened American fellow-citizens : "Have we not all one 
father? Has not one God created us? Have we not all one 
country, one law, one interest? Is not the United States built 
upon the platform of : The common fatherhood of God, and 
the common brotherhood of men? Does not the Constitution 
guarantee life, liberty and the pursuit of hapiness to all its in- 
habitants? Have not their dissenting ancestors, in old Europe, 
suffered from the same foes, under the same ostracism? "Why 
then fellow-citizens, should not Jew and Gentile in America 



1 (II M., 4, 22.) Israel is my first-born son. 



210 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

be "brothers? Why be untrue to each other and the Consti- 
tution of the fathers.^ Appeal to the sound American common 
sense, then the last social discrimination against the Jew will 
disappear. You will not be Hebrews (strangers) here, not be 
^'tolerated," no, you will have here your home, your fatherland, 
your full political rights and your social equality, as justly 
respected fellow-citizens of the Jewish denomination. 

REVERENCE TO CONGREGATION AND SYNAGOGUE 

The next reverence you owe to your Congregation and your 
Synagogue. When growing up to full manhood and woman- 
hood, be members of some Hebrew religious body. Remember 
well, limited man must have some standard, and badge of be- 
longing. Mankind is too large and indefinite and must be sub- 
divided into many minor groups, as races, peoples, creeds and 
denominations. Participate in the privileges and in the bur- 
dens of some such subdivision and congregation. The egotist 
hides his selfishness under the cloak of non-sectarianism. He 
claims, "he is no Jew and no Christian, he is a man." That is 
pure subterfuge. We are too insignificant for rendering serv- 
ices at once to the entire human race. We are useful to man- 
kind by being profitable to one fraction thereof, there where 
Providence has placed us ; to our family, our kindred, our 
community, our religion, our country, our historical associa- 
tions. We serve the human race by serving some of its sub- 
divisions. Let us be fair, sympathetic, and just to all our 
fellow-men. But our love and work must be calculated for and 
aim at benefitting one section thereof, then it will benefit all. 
There is room for cosmopolitanism and for particularism, for 
humanity and for sect. Justice, liberality and good-will to all ; 
our immediate efforts, our special care, for those of our provi- 
dential surroundings ! Say with modest dignity, with undis- 
guised satisfaction : "I am a Jew and an American, a citizen 
of the youngest nation and a member of the oldest race and 
faith. I stand upon American Law and I reach out to that 
of Sinai. My race represents the civilization, the religion elab- 



i(Malachai II, 15). Has not one God created us, have we not all one 
God, why shall we be false to brethren. . . 



REVERENCE FOR EDUCATION. 211 

orated and refined in the crucible of four thousand years, from 
Mesopotamia to the Hudson and the Rio Grande. The heart 
and kernel thereof is humanitarianism, but until recognized 
and adopted universally, I must keep up some forms and sym- 
bols special to it and sectarian. This is the meaning of the 
Jewish Congregation, Jewish forms and Jewish peculiarities. 
American Jews, as long as monotheism, the Decalogue, the 
Bible and their tenets are not yet universally accepted and 
practiced, as long as we are a "Peculiar people" for holding 
fast to them, so long shall we need peculiar forms : extra Hebrew 
worship, language, festivals, race-marriage, Sabbath-Schools. 
Here we are particular and special, in any thing else we are 
plain and simple Americans, just and sympathetic towards all 
our fellow-citizens, without any discrimination of race, creed 
and origin. In that way are Israel, mankind, country, sect and 
faith brought into full consonance and harmony by the teach- 
ings of Horeb. 

REVERENCE FOR EDUCATION. 

Let us now mention the reverence we owe to education, ac- 
quisitions of all sorts of knowledge, higher science, arts, refiner 
ment, manners, urbanity. American youth, utilize well your 
schools, your books and libraries, your scholastic opportuni- 
ties, all. Reverence your teachers no less than God and par- 
ents. ^ It is the teacher that develops your mind, nourishes and 
grows your mentality, awakens your moral sense, implants 
upon you the ''image of God." Resume and embody here the 
historic task of your people, as the mental educator of the 
world's civilized nations. Wherever your ancestors came they 
did not adopt the lower civilization of the natives, but intro- 
duced there their own higher culture. They introduced higher 
standards of education, culture, morality, refinement. So they 
did when coming un1o the Roman world, N. Africa, Spain, West- 
ern and Eastern Europe. You must do the same in America. Your 
immigrating parents could not as yet attend to that part of 
Israel's mission, entirely engrossed as they were by the cares 
for the mere subsistence. That part done, it is incumbent 



(Sandhedrin 19 B.) n^'o^ Hl)^2 



212 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

upon you to attend, first, to your own higher education and 
thus qualify yourselves as mankind's teachers, as the descend- 
ants of the ''kingdom of priests," as educators. "To learn and 
teach" is probably the highest duty of the patriarchal people.^ 
Cherish and cultivate therefore, knowledge, science and char- 
acter, the divinest sparks of human nature; man actually 
means mentality, reason, knowledge. Knowledge is power, is 
life, humane and divine, immortal. Remember, yours is the 
oldest civilized people of known history.^ Your great ethical 
Constitution, the Decalogue, claims an antiquity of three thou- 
sand and five hundred years : Israel is called the nation of the 
Book. At Sinai was held up to him the great ideal of a ''king- 
dom of priests, viz : of learners and teachers. To be a Jew 
and be ignorant, is a contradiction, is incompatible. Your 
vaunted Jewish descent, traits, blood are of small avail, of little 
account, if not ripened and developed into and combined with 
cultured heads, hearts and hands. Show, Amercan youths, that 
you have not degenerated from your stock, that the silks and 
dollars and sweets of this land have not spoiled you. You can 
not afford to say : "Father has made money and we shall 
enjoy it ; father has worked and we shall rest upon his laurels." 
Dear friends, fine clothes, diamonds and dainties should not 
satisfy patriarch-begotten youths and maidens. No, you must 
improve upon your parental program. You must continue 
where your fathers have stopped ; you will resume and continue 
what they have commenced. They have done their share of 
the work. The poor immigrants have honestly built up for 
you a country, a home, a livelihood ; you shall continue the 
noble work. Utilize your leisures, your means, your schools, 
your golden opportunities. Cultivate your brains, your minds 
and your hands. Acquire a solid education. Be not satisfied 
with a bread and butter one. Be no paper-doctor, strive for 
expanding your mind's and body's horizon. Ever aim at the 
highest you can and attain it, in science, art, industries, litera- 
ture, state and society. And be not satisfied with the usual 
standards. The American generally aims at wealth and his 
education is the fit tool for that. Israel is the priest-people, 



.y:3b Dn^Jti'i .ii^bb) 'I'if^bh -n^n nj:3 nnin Dr^^n ^ 

211 M., IV, 22. Beni bechori. 



REVERENCE TO GOD AND VIRTUE. 213 

the book-people, he aims at knowledge and duty per se, at the 
expansion of the human capacities and possibilities. There- 
fore let your aspirations strike higher. Therefore set in this 
mercantile country a nobler example, improve the higher edu- 
cation, that of the heart and the intellect, the humanitas. Imi- 
tate not poor patterns, but set the better example. Try to aim 
and to reach the farthest. Your otherwise pre-occupied fellow- 
citizens expect of you that much needed example. Small spir- 
its may feel jealous and apprehensive. But the pattern Amer- 
ican, the genius of Franklin and Garfield, of Emerson and The- 
odore Parker will applaud and cheer you. Let the bulk of 
our honest masses go to agriculture, common trades and indus- 
tries ; whilst the master-minds shall devote their energies to the 
higher walks of humane activity. Let us soon have our 
American Muncks and Zunzes, Geigers and Graetzes, Rappo- 
ports and Francks, our American Boernes, Simons, Laskers, our 
American Gabirols and both the Mendelssohns, the Heines and 
Halevy's, our American Cremieux and Disraelis. The Irish- 
Americans are smart, the Scotch-Yankees are shrewd, the 
Southerners are stately. Let the Hebrew mind, mind its his- 
torical calling, as the priestly kingdom, the higher education of 
the human race. 

REVERENCE TO GOD AND VIRTUE. 

V/e have now arrived, attentive Readers, at the highest Rev- 
erence, the root and the top of all piety, whence love to parents, 
to country, to nationality and to science flow and take their in- 
spirations. The highest Reverence we owe is to God and virtue. 
God is the root, virtue the fruit; God is the motive, virtue the 
result. God and virtue ever go together and vanish simul- 
taneously. Without the God-root, virtue is a mere, evanescent, 
shadowy flower. Let the grand and solemn reminiscences of 
Exodus, Sinai and Horeb, Revelation and Decalogue, Israel's his- 
tory and ancestral achievements deeply impress you, and gain 
for you the profound and inefifaceable persuasion that the fashiona- 
ble nihilism and the flat sensualism of our times are sophisms and 
fallacies. Carry home from this study the conviction that there 
is a living Providence, a universal Moral Order that has im- 
planted into our nature and that expressly dictates honesty and 



214 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

truth as man's rule of conduct; that rewards virtue and avenges 
innocence ; that goodness carries its own satisfaction and furnishes 
us with the best arms and the courage for Hfe's arduous battle, 
viz: a serene conscience, the dignity of duty fulfilled, and the 
best claims to our rights; with nothing to fear, to hide or to 
blush for. Living up to the axiom of: "Honesty is the best 
policy;" we gain the consciousness of having walked in the 
straight line which is ever the shortest and the safest in the long 
run. 

Further on, continuing our study on our theme, the Ten Com- 
mandments and their bearings, we shall see the above fully con- 
firmed : That crime and vice are slippery and allow no safe standing 
room ; they shine luridly, like rotten wood in the darkness, insinu- 
ating themselves like siren's song. Beware of temptation ! It begins 
as a delicate silk thread, grows soon into cable thickness, and 
finishes in digrace and ruin. Young Americans, when in presence 
of temptation, remember this study of the Decalogue on Rev- 
erence. Think of the gray haired father, of the venerable wrinkles 
of the mother, of the disgrace to your people, race and escutcheon, 
of the blush and tears of those who love you. Think, reconsider, 
stop, avoid the first wrong step. The first is the easiest to avoid ; 
soon it may be too late ! Friends, remember : Will you prosper 
and abide in America, the country God gave you? Then cling 
to virtue as to the firmest foundation to stand upon; cling to 
the belief in God, in Israel's mission, in truth and in liberty, in an 
improving humanity. Insist on your rights, do fully your duty 
and fear nobody ! 

THE SEVERAL REVERENCES. 

Let us conclude. What does the fifth Commandment con- 
temiplated, recommend in regard to the future of Israel in America? 
It recommends manifold Reverences. Reverence for the past 
and for the future. Be no mummy; vegetate not in and be not 
absorbed by the past, but utilize the past, in your preparation for 
the future. Let the ashes of the fathers be the blessed seed of the 
children. Remember Mosis' two arks, one with the ashes of 
Joseph and the other with the law of the Ever Living. Let the 
present be the bridge connecting both. Never break off and 
never stop the process of human amelioration. Let improve- 



THE SEVERAL REVERENCES. 215 

ment ever go on, let the past ever develop, but the future must 
be its offshoot, no break ! Ever hold fast to tried principles in 
their new applications. Never apostatize, allow neither stagnation 
nor revolution, but ever go by evolution. As the tree begins with 
the seed, proceeds to the root, developes in the stem, the tree, 
the branches, the twigs, the blossoms, the leaves and the fruit, 
ever renovating, regenerating and producing fresh, young sprouts, 
but all of the exactly identical principle, the original seed — even 
so, American Israel, with all your renovations and moderniza- 
tions, adaptations and reforms, look to it that the original seed 
and sap be not corrupted and exchanged for a shallow indift'er- 
entism. Do not sell your noble birth-right for a pot of lintels. 
Ever see that the essence, — I say the essence — of the "kingom of 
priests" the mentality and morality of the Patriarchal seed, and 
the Sinaic Decalogue be and remain identical and intact. And 
the five-fold reverences above enumerated point to that essence. 
Do practice those many Reverences. Behold, this is a young 
country, is little over a century old. All the higher virtues could 
not yet be cultivated here. As the American has pulled down 
many idols of the old world, in State, Church and Society, King, 
noble and priest, guild, classes and masses, he became somewhat 
impressed with the vague feeling that all the ancient world's 
reverences are but idolatries. History, poetry, virtue, study, 
ideality, character, name and veneration — all faded and paled by his 
realism. The state, the church, the parental relation, the marital 
tie, friendship, patriotism, science, glory, even philanthropy, all 
became secularized, vulgarized, divested of their halo, examined 
with the microscope of their practical utility, of business interest. 
Studying the noble facts, ideas and tenets of the Decalogue and 
the Exodus, venerated by mankind as the dawn of our Western 
civilization, I wish to call your attention to the importance of 
the etherial ideal principle of Reverence, in danger of being 
eliminated from American psychology. Friends ! Hold fast to 
that principle, often abused, but essential to all true nobility and 
grandeur. The V. Commandment recommends to you the fol- 
lowing Reverences as important for your theoretical and practical 
success, as a necklace of continuous venerations, viz : Reverence 
for yotr Parents, for your American Country, for your people, 
for your religion, and for higher education, all growing from 
the same root : reverence to God and to Duty ! Let these five fold 



2i6 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

Reverences, combining the past and the future, be well remem- 
bered and practiced by the young generation. Then, without fail, 
America will be your prosperous home with your full civic and 
political rights, your social equality and your humanitarian mis- 
sion. Any remnant of mediaeval prejudice will yield to merit 
and character. At that noble price you can afford to stay a 
minority. The divine spirit breathes in such a minority.^ 



iFirst addressed to a youthful audience, about 40 years ago, as also 
the following: 



217 

VII Study. 



DECALOGUE, JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 

In the preceding pages we have seen that the Decalogue is 
the embryo or the nucleus, the epitome or the central-doctrine of 
the Mosaic legislation — according to the assumed standpoint of the 
reader. It is the leading chapter therefore of the entire Sacred 
Writ. It is even of a vaster import. It is the Corner-stone of 
human civilization past and future. It is a category of human 
nature. It will never be obsolete, disestablished and will ever be 
the sole and unique basis upon which all the races unite, for the 
Qoran too, as also Egyptology^ contain versions of these leading 
features of civilization in which all mankind can reconcile and 
unite in one bond of brotherhood. It stands upon the fatherhood 
of the One God of the universe and its necessary corolary, the 
brotherhood of all men. And the promulgation of the Com- 
mandments, their universal dissemination, is Israel's great raison 
d'etre, his activity in the past, present and future, of his indestruc- 
tibility, his eternity. After having analyzed the Decalogue in the 
abstract, solely as a doctrine, we shall now treat of it as con- 
crete, as vested and incarnated in a people, as the platform of 
Judaism. We shall see now that Israel is battling for it, for it he 
continues in the minority, in its interest he deems it his duty not 
to enter into and fuse with the majority. By that the thoughtful 
reader will gain the conviction that he fights not for privilege, for 
national ascendency, for political dominion, nor for any personal 
private advantage, but for the great aspirations of mankind, for 
the only platform upon which all the races and countries can 
stand and unite under the aegis of one God, one law, one right, 
one duty and one interest for all. This promulgation of the Ten 
Commandments is his providential mission, is the great cause and 
the necessity for a priestly people, its representatives. That same 
mission is and was the shield, the arms defensive and offensive 
of that puny Hebrew race, waging a world-war for 3,000 years, 
a phenomenon so abnormal and yet so necessary for mankind's 
advance. When that Decalogue will become an accomplished 



iSee on that Mohammed and Qoran, in my: Humanity, etc., of Pen- 
tateuch, Egyptology. 



2i8 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

fact, when it will be accepted in its entirety without quibbling and 
sophistry, when it will become both the doctrine and the rule of 
conduct of the mass of the people, not only of the scholar and 
the thnking classes, when it will become the daily, practical, 
norm of life, not an abstract theory for the elite, then there will 
be no need of division, for Israel and for a Gentile world. They 
will then both emerge into the one Humanity, under the Provi- 
dence of the One God. I say : The Decalogue as the rule of 
conduct only of the elite, viz : the elite of Israel, and gradually 
of the elite of the civilized races. The masses of both have heard 
of it, but not taken it to heart; it is not yet their norm of prac- 
tical life. The bulk of Israel differs only thus far from the 
Gentile masses that it has accepted it, formally and externally, 
since the Sinai epoch, and is thus its historical banner bearer. 
Hence the ethical necessity of Israel's continuation. As the 
prophets of old, so the Israelitish Elite only represent that doc- 
trine in truth and in deed, and these prophetic select ones will 
gain over the masses, Jewish and Gentile. We shall later on, 
further elucidate it. 

DECALOGUE, ITS HARMONY AND UNIVERSALITY. 

We said : The Decalogue is the Central-doctrine of the Mosaic 
Legislation, the base of human civilization, the leading feature of 
the entire Sacred Scriptures. Indeed, closely examining it, we 
find there the epitome of all man's duties, towards God, towards 
himself and towards his family, people, country and fellow men, 
all. Follow it up and you will have a good and happy individual, 
citizen, people, State, church. At the very opening it lays the 
only possible foundation for a human Commonwealth and its 
effective legislation. It begins with the solemn affirmation of the 
existence of God, the Principle, the Supreme Authority in whose 
name the State is established and the Code is promulgated. God 
is the author of its freedom, its nationality and its organic Law. 
He watches over its wellbeing, the reward of the fuUfilment of 
his will. This God, the Decalogue teaches, is only one, no other 
independent powers or gods besides him. And this is not mere 
theory, not priestly jealousy. This Divine Unity has its practical 
significance. It means the unity of the Creative Power, the 
harmonious working of his will in the parts, the universality of the 



DECALOGUE, ITS HARMONY AND UNIVERSALITY. 219 

Law. It means the world made for the peace, the happiness and 
the perfection of its creatures. It excludes the possibility of hell, 
Devil and original sin, of eternal punishments, of racial dis- 
criminations, invidiousness and intolerance. This God is strictly a 
Unit ; he is one, not two, not three, not many and not the all. That 
means Monotheism, not trinity, not dualism, not polytheism, not 
pantheism, and not atheism. All these sociologically considered, 
are unfit for a humanitarian State and social compact. 

This God, the Decalogue further teaches, is spiritual and 
no incarnation, containing nothing bodily^ not accountable to 
human senses, with no sensual attributes, as doing, speaking, 
walking, standing, angry or pleased, not amenable to affect or 
change. Man can mentally and ethically only understand and 
feel him, not by his five senses. The divine Essence is not 
comprehensible by man ; we learn his existence, all-power, etc., 
by the testimony of the universe, by the workings in nature, 
his effects. The world proclaims the God-existence. It is, 
hence must He be. It is well done, powerful, wise, answering 
its purpose, harmonious, orderly, law-abiding, beautiful, hence 
must all these attributes be his emanations, as all the rays issue 
from the sun. And when the Bible gives to God human attri- 
butes and affects, it is only parable, simile, it "speaks in human 
language." Man knows, is inspired, bid by God — mentally, 
morally, conscientiously, never bodily or sensually. (See Mai- 
monides Guide Part I). God being the spiritual essence, he 
cannot adequately be represented by a body or any emblem. 
The less can he have a vicar, a son, a partner, an associate. He 
is unique, and he alone is the Only One, all else has its equal : 
No symbolic idols ! The divine spirit shall be conceived by our 
human spirit not grasped by our senses. We are to conceive 
him mentally, our eye, etc., can not see him. It is a fact that 
whenever mian began to symbolize, viz. : represent the deity 
by any signs or emblems, idolatry was the unfailing and fatal 
result. Man began to worship God in some image, soon he 
worshiped the image as God — du sublime au ridicule. — At last 
he derided the image as a fetish and disbelieved in God, hypo- 
critically keeping up the semblance as a scarecrow for others. 
This is the history of all divine representations : Symbolism, 
idolatry, hypocrisy, Atheismi. You will find this verified 
everywhere, in Greece after Socrates, in the Roman world at 



220 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

the epoch of Paul, in Romanism shortly before the Reforma- 
tion, and at the end of the eighteenth century. The mask is 
used no longer. The God and Providence idea will always 
command respect, symbolism soon loses its relish. The masses 
will ever take the symbol for the idea, and the idol for the 
ideal, and idolatry with hypocrisy will ever be the result of 
symbolical religion. Hence, "Thou shalt make unto thee no 
graven image ! "Remember thou hast seen on Horeb no figure 
and no likeness." God is One, pure Spirit ! 

On that solid base of the Only One, spiritual and eternal 
God, the Decalogue erects the great structure of a civilized 
society. It first founds the institution of Sabbath, a day set 
apart for the recreation and regeneration of the body and for 
the cultivation of the divine in the human, for bringing into 
closer touch the divine and the human, a day when man of 
earth reaches out to heaven to reconquer his marred spiritu- 
ality. By that institution brutalized conventional man be- 
comes again natural man, and regains his liberty, his humane 
dignity, his birth right in God's likeness. Toiling, unhinged, 
artificial, wrangling society is ever coming nearer its ultimate 
future conditions; the ideal, deeply imbedded in man's mind 
and higher aspirations. Sabbath is the red thread to that ideal ; 
by it he becomes aware that he is gifted with divine poten- 
tialities, with intelligence, morality and a hundred noble ca- 
pacities. The Decalogue re-created the Sabbath-institution as 
man's great Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, 
his rehabilitation into his God-intended conditions. Sabbath 
is the hanging bridge and connecting link between the divine 
and the human, earth and heaven, matter and spirit, the vulgar 
and the sublime, the angel and the brute in our own breast. 
Neglecting that day, not using it, or misusing it for unholy or 
vulgar purposes, giving it up to business or to frivolous amuse- 
ments, is committing moral and intellectual suicide, is killing 
the angel in our heart and leaving us to the control of the 
brute ! 

After the Decalogue had established a divine Principle as 
Supreme Guide, after it has given us the Sabbath as the means 
of our connection with that, and has taught man self-culture 
and his obligations towards his Guide, it then inculcates his 
duties to society, by establishing the first link thereof, the fam- 



DECALOGUE, ITS HARMONY AND UNIVERSALITY. 221 

ily and the relation of parent and child, a reciprocity of love 
and respect, self-sacrifice and obedience : ''Reverence thy father 
and thy mother." Honor and pay defernce to your parents, re- 
spect and cherish them. Look up to them as to God on earth. 
They represent in our youth, the Deity by many of its attri- 
butes : age, w^isdom, providence, goodness. 

The Decalogue then continues to inculcate the chief obliga- 
tions towards our next, to society at large, by declaring sacred 
and inviolable the life, the purity, the property, the veracity 
and the upright dealings of man. It penetrates deeper, prescribing 
the sacredness of even the thoughts and feelings of our inner- 
most soul. Thus it completes a code of ten rules, indispensably 
necessary to the salvation of the individual and the state. It is 
an organic law, a rudimentary Code for the unit and the state, an 
outline of a social compact, embracing all the elements of a civil- 
ized society, beginning with the root : God ; going on with the 
stem : the Sabbath and the family ; the branches, man's rights 
and duties ; the leaves, blossoms and fruit, tfie meditations, 
sensations and deeds. It is a convenant with a succinct enum- 
eration of our duties towards our God, towards ourselves, to- 
wards our family and society at large. 

The Decalogue is therefore justly to be considered as a legis- 
lation in embryo. The rest of the Pentateuch is but the devel- 
opment of the seed, the necessary complement, amplification 
and adaptation to the ever changing environments. The Pro- 
phets represent its backbone, its principles, its universal hu- 
manitarian application. The historical Books, the hagiographs 
are the representation of its struggles, failures and conquests 
within and without, over paganism and barbarism, since Sinai 
to the epoch of the Maccabeans. The Mishna and the Talmud 
are the expounding and the adaptations to later ages and 
changed surroundings, and history since that time, is but the 
continuation of that struggle, its partial triumphs and partial 
failures in the Occident and the Orient, Christianity and Mo- 
hammedanism. It is therefore historically and critically cor- 
rect to say that the Ten Words are the central doctrine of the 
Mosaic Legislation and the leading enactment of the entire 
Sacred Scriptures. 

But it is critically correct to affirm furthermore that they 
are the foundation and basis of all human civilization, for I 



222 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

ask, can any one imagine a society to thrive without the recog- 
nition of a Supreme Authority of Law, without consecrating 
higher humanity, family, life, chastity, property, truth, and 
moral self-restraint, one's own desires? Without the acknowl- 
edgment of the principles expressed in that Charter? Can we 
base a state on atheism? Without spiritual culture? Without 
filial piety? Without the consecration of work, honor, owner- 
ship, veracity, self-restraint? Evidently no political body 
could subsist and thrive without. You might as well build 
a house without a firm ground, base, walls or roof ! A state not 
recognizing the Ten Words will be a state of anarchy and 
club-law, will be a society of wolves and bears. A civilization 
without the Decalogue is a knife without a blade whose handle 
is missing. 

It is therefore again critically correct to afhrm that this He- 
braic Organic State Law is unsectarian, is broadly humani- 
tarian, is the corner-stone of human civilization, is the sole 
and unique basis upon which humanity can stand, thrive and 
unite on terms of right, freedom, universality and sympathy. 
The Hebraic Decalogue is the Great Charter of man. Its chief 
merit and sublimity consists in its universality, constituting 
Prophetic Judaism as the ultimate faith of mankind. 

THE BANNER-BEARER AND THE ORIFLAMME. 

Indeed the guardianship and propagation of these Ten Prin- 
ciples has been entrusted to Israel, the descendants of the 
people of the Exodus and of Sinai. To them has been handed 
over the palladium of humanity, to them the sacred fire which 
was with Moses enkindled on the bush of Horeb, at whose flame 
was successfully lit, age after age, the refulgent torch of human 
civilization. That Oriflamme, burning upon the central Arabian 
Peninsula, spread its beneficent blaze through Israel, over Asia 
and Africa, Europe and this new Western world ; that light 
which now glows, warms and cheers the hearts of the Orient 
and Occident, of all the Gentile races, will gradually invade 
and gain over the extreme lands of Mongolia, China and Ja- 
pan ; that light of Horeb, like the flashing thunderbolt of na- 
ture, has illumined, struck and overturned the entire fabric 
of the old world. It has scattered the phantoms of the Greek 



THE BANNER-BEARER AND THE ORIFLAMME. 223 

Olympus, shattered to pieces the Roman sword on the ruins of 
its collapsed capitol, subdued the fierceness of the Teutonic in- 
vasion and made them the era of a new Western culture ; that 
light has purified and prepared the globe's atmosphere for the 
reception of the Sinaic platform, of "Love thy neighbor as 
thyself," repeated over again and again since that epoch, by 
the founders of Christianity, of Mohammedanism and later of 
Buddhism. That platform and its great parole of the Golden Rule, 
has since been adopted by the leaders of the American and the 
French Revolutions, it is the great aspiration of present philan- 
thropists and humanitarian thinkers. That holy fire of truth, 
fraternity and justice has been kept up and entertained by the 
people of Israel, for these three thousand five hundred years, 
over the entire habitable globe. Gentile world, consider ! That 
v/as a tremendous work, an awful and dangerous undertaking ; 
to oppose alone all the ancient peoples combined and take up 
the gauntlet for initiating the new polity of One God and one 
right for all ! To claim to be better, to teach and act on the 
principle : that not selfishness, pleasure and over-reaching, but 
justice, truth and altruism prevail; "that not armies and not 
force, but divine right conquers! (Sachariah, 4.6)." Who can 
handle fire vv^ithout burning his fingers? Who can barely catch 
the lightning without being struck? Even so Israel. He has 
well burnt his fingers, has terribly scorched his face. ''Do not 
wonder that I look so swarthy, uncouth and awkward." (Song 
of Songs, 1.5). He is still shaking with that terrible shock. 
Every Jewish face, every Jewish breast bears the deep marks 
and scars of that gigantic millennial struggle. Consider the 
magnitude of the undertaking. Prometheus arrayed against 
Olympos ! Consider : Ancient society had a thousand gods, a 
thousand clans with a thousand claims and conflicts : The 
Decalogue has One God^ one right and peace. The ancient 
society had kings, warriors, barons and slaves : The Decalogue 
teaches God, a free people, work and duty. The ancient so- 
ciety had a country with masters and glebe men : The Deca- 
logue has an inalienable acre for each man. Ancient society 
had a slave-woman and slave-children : The Decalogue, free 
women, monogamy and free children; a free state with free 
and equal citizens, no Helots and no Pariahs. The ancient 
society had cunning priests, with profusion of temples, sacri- 



224 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

fices and observances, superstitions, horrifying offerings and 
priestcraft ! The Decalogue insists on law, reverence, schools, 
filial piety, righteousness, purity and truth telling. The ancient 
society had selfishness, warfares, conquests and ambitions : 
The Decalogue, right, sympathy, arbitration and peace ; war 
only in defense, not offense. Now it was puny Israel's huge 
task to bring over the ancient world to the ways of the Sinaic 
doctrine. Was that not a tremendous task? Is It a wonder 
when so much antagonism, misconstruction, invidiousness 
were engendered? Your own Jesus, O Gentiles, antagoniz- 
ing priests and hypocrites, Herodians and Caesars, was 
nailed to the cross. Is it a wonder when Juda, opposing 
all the world's political and ecclesiastical tyrants, had to bear 
His cross? The entire Hebraic history is the record of 
that millennial, bitter struggle and martyrdom. In order to 
teach to the world the Abrahamic or Mosaic polity, he had to 
renounce most of the amenities of life in civilized society. In 
order to teach the polytheists justice, reason, sympathy, he had 
to submit to be denied the common rights of man. The marks 
and scars on his front and breast, the noble, bloody, badges of 
honor won on a thousand battlefields fought for human rights, 
those marks and scars the mob decried as the Kain's signs of 
deicide ! O the unthinking masses ! falling prostrate in wor- 
ship at the feet of a Jewish martyr, so far as to declare him 
God, they overlooked the w^hole nation of martyrs and acted 
towards them as if there were no God and no human ri$"ht, no 
reason, no common sense and no truth. Despoiling an entire 
nation for the benefit of one member thereof, they declared 
Israel, the Sar-El, the patriarchal blue-blood, the Teacher, the 
Messiah of mankind — they declared him the pariah of man- 
kind ! And the silk or cotton mob dared place their foot on 
the neck of their Teacher and spiritual savior. For long dark 
centuries he was denied a country and a sheltering roof, a 
piece of honest bread, protection to the cradle of his babe, the 
air and the light of the sky. Do you remember the 53d chap- 
ter of Isaiah, that chapter which Christians ref^r to their mes- 
siah of Nazareth? Read that chapter carefully and you will 
find, it refers, not to one particular Jew, but to the Jewish peo- 
ple, the providential, historical redeemer of mankind, he who 
has redeemed the world from paganism, superstition, sensual- 
ity and ignorance, from the slavery of king, priest and idol. 



THE BANNER-BEARER AND THE ORIFLAMME. 225 

That chapter 53, sketches in touching strokes, the glorious, 
painful and sad career of the Hebraic people, during millen- 
niums, over the entire globe. It narrates how that ethnos suf- 
fered in order to improve mankind; all fellows and brethren, 
children of the one heavenly father, who asks of them no other 
service and worship but to love and tolerate each other, be 
just and merciful towards one another, live and let live and 
act up to the policy of: Honesty is the best policy. 

Until recent times Israel did not regret his heavy historical 
charge : He meekly performed his work at any cost. Indeed to 
suffer for a great cause never lowers, and rather aggrandizes an 
individual or a people. Ethically he has greatly and solidly gained 
by these struggles. It is no small honor to be an Israelite indeed. 
He has been slandered and calumniated since Pharaoh to Pobe- 
denostzeff. Yet gems shine forth even when trod in the dust 
under foot, and precious stones need no gold setting to show forth 
their brilliant lustre. Judah is scattered all over the world, — as 
a seed to bear rich harvests for mankind. He lives in Peking, 
London and California, in Malacca and in Archangel, in Siberia, 
Naples and Florida, everywhere as the teacher of the Decalogue, 
Everywhere that has been his great spiritual merchandise, at all 
times he was handing it around, peddling it along on his eternal 
migrations. Everywhere the Ten-Words were the contents of 
his practical life and his theoretical teachings. They were his 
arms defensive and offensive. Everywhere he was called upon 
to answer the invidious question : Jew, what do you stand by 
and for ? Jew, what is your business ? Why don't you fuse with 
the majority? Why do you continue isolated, an exception?"' 
And his answer ever has been : "We Jews stand by the Decalogue. 
We stand for human civilization. Our business is — to propound 
and examplify justice to every man. Our task is to teach and 
practice the doctrine : I am the Eternal thy God. Thou shalt 
love thy neighbor as thyself. Abraham and Moses taught that 
first, and since Buddha, Jesus and Mohammed have learned and 
taught it. But as yet it is a mere ideal, a theory. You Gentiles 
claim to have learned it, but you still misunderstand, misconstrue 
and misapply it. And as long as this is so, in theory and in 
practice, my task continues as a Jew. I can not put aside my 
gloomy armor, my crown of thorns, and my martyr's scepter. I 
must still stand isolated, though in your midst, and continue to 



226 

ISRAEL'S FUTURE. 

teach, until you have learned to live and practice on the principle 
of the fatherhood of the One God and the brotherhood of the 
one mankind. 

As to the future, as long as Israel will continue to teach and 
practice the Ten-Words, he will be invincible, he will live and 
ethically thrive. But the moment he flinches and yields the 
Decalogue to worldly temptations, the moment he follows the bad 
example, materialism and selfishness, instead of setting a good 
one of spiritually and altruism, that moment his right-to-be 
will be forfeited. — Israel is an insignificant minority; historically 
and providentially he is instituted the teacher of the majority. As 
such he must be ethically better. And as soon as the minority is 
not better, it has lost its own import, and being numerically by 
far inferior, it inevitably sinks below the greater number. The 
minority is and must be superior to the majority, to make up by 
quality for the lack of quantity. It must be above it in force 
viz., mentally and morally. Then it is a leader and the impulsive 
divine spirit moves in it. The moment it is no longer such a 
force, it has abdicated. Its historical mission and its right-to-be, 
both, are at an end. The religious ceremonies alone will not help. 
The host of forms without a spark of spirit will not help. The 
galvanic batteries of the Qabbala carry no fire. Remember this 
and meditate on it, you, all whom it may concern. Brethren. 
Only a minority intellectually and morally superior, can claim to 
be the Sinaic 'Teople of priests and the holy nation," acting as 
''a light to the nations." That determines Israel's future. A 
scholar recently gave out as his opinion that the Jew has taught 
ail he ever knew over and above the Gentiles, that these have 
learned all he had to teach, that his task is now over| except to 
return to Palestine. I can not agree that Israel's task is ended . . . 
The Gentiles have not learned all. Only the Gentile elite has. 
The masses have neither learned nor do they practice. Old 
paganism is dead, but the new paganism lives. Its forms are dead, 
its evil spirit lives. Even the Jewish masses in the Ghetto have 
decayed. The elite alone, the modern prophets have learned and 
do practice. Hence is Israel's mission far from finished, because 
it is far from being accomplished. The masses, Jewish and Gen- 
tile, need still the official, historical Israel, the Sinaic people of 



JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 227 

priests, the select, scattered prophetic band, to continue and incul- 
cate the hoary yet ever new doctrine, in theory and practice. As 
ancient Israel and Judah, in spite of their own personal idolatry, 
clustered around the prophetic school and, by their bulk, helped 
that nucleus to make monotheism dominant in Judaea, Samaria 
and the Roman world, even so, is Israel of the dispersion indis- 
pensibly necessary, by its inherited, latent, potential instincts, to 
assist the elite in and out of Israel, to counteract the reigning 
materiaHsm and to make the Decalogue man's rule of conduct, 
in fact and in deed. 

JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 

Not wishing any longer to pry behind the curtains of Provi- 
dence, let us return to our study and emphasize our theme 
proper : The leading and salient distinction between Sinaic Juda- 
ism and trinitarian, official Christianity. This real and great 
point at issue between the monotheistc Jew and the trinitarian 
Christian is our very text : *'I am the Eternal, thy God, thou shalt 
have no other Gods besides me." It is God-One and God-three 
or triune; God pure spirit and God incarnate. Here the Jew 
cannot yield, here he will and shall never yield, never ! Even 
baptism can not change it. Mark well? Boerne, Bartholdi, 
Heine, Disraeli remained monotheists to their end. And this 
issue is of no small import; it is not purely theoretical; it is not 
an abstract issue merely, theological or metapsysical. No, it is 
fraught with the most realistic consequences. It involves the 
practical problems of man, life and world; concerning duty and 
right, freedom and slavery, virtue and vice. On this peg Official 
Christianity has long hung its pile of dogmas and tenets, theories 
and practices : Salvation by grace and the blood on the Cross ; 
creed and not deed ; eternal hell for all outside of the church : 
papal infallibility and royal supremacy, divine right of kings ; 
government by born rulers ; eternal tutelage of the people ; sub- 
jection of reason to blind faith and authority; proscription of 
all progress all amelioration and intellectual education; holding 
all in the thumbscrews of the status-quo-ante, and searching one's 
ideals in the far past, not in the gradually advancing future. 
Let me emphasize that, just for these interests, proscribed by offi- 
cial dogma and Creed, the Mosaist is struggling; he is not in 
the least fighting for a national and local God, but for the God 



228 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

of the universe; not for ancient Judaea, but for the salvation of 
the entire globe. He bears a warm interest in the country of his 
fathers. That country on the Jordan has well deserved of man- 
kind, as the cradle of the patriarchs, of his nationality, of his 
doctrine, of the Jewish, the Christian and the Mohammedan 
religions. But his historical horizon is vaster and his mission, 
as distnctly outlned by his Teachers and confirmed by history, 
embraces the globe with all its human myriads. Nearly 2,000 
years ago he has been robbed of his proper country, and has since 
become a citizen of the world. Wherever he finds a soil for the 
Decalogue, there he settles and works for the good of his new 
country. He is expecting and busily preparing for the advent 
of a better future, for mankind's liberation from superstition, ig- 
norance, pauperism, political and sectarian oppression ; from folly, 
vice and tears, for the reign of truth, freedom, universal educa- 
tion and happiness for all, the platform of the Sinaic Law. He 
has been these last 2,000 years, especially, struggling for freedom 
of conscience, for human dignity, for justice to all, for the aboli- 
tion of all distinctions of race and caste, for the cessation of the 
reign of privileges and war, and the beginning of the dominion 
of justice and sympathy to all, for the platform of an improved 
and reconciled humanity under the aegis of One God and father. 
Let us quote an example : 

THE SYLLABUS OF 1870 AND ISRAEL'S PLATFORM. 

The last third part of the past 19th Century gloomily rang with 
the debates and defying reports from clerical Rome, from the 
ecclesiastical Court at the Tiber, the Vatican. The present gen- 
eration has listened still to the dying utterances of that papal 
syllabus of 1870, the ultimatum which the Tiber-Pontifex Maxi- 
mus gave to the 19th century civilization. Rome that no longer 
conquers by her whilom legions, tried the force of her bulls. 
Once more she made the effort and sent forth her demons of 
superstition to enslave the world. The present pontiff wisely 
never more showed any such mediaeval proclivities. It was then 
the last, I hope. In that syllabus the head of the Trinitarian 
Church proscribed all the great conquests of the modern times 
and their efforts, all that man has gained since Luther, Calvin, 
Zwingli and Knox to Washington and Franklin, Lessing, Kant, 



THE SYLLABUS OF 1870 AND ISRAEL'S PLATFORM. 229 

Mirabeau and Lafayette; since the Renaissance to the American 
and the French Revolutions. All that the Vatican solemnly rep- 
robated and stigmatized as heresy and sheer damnation. In one 
immense net it entangled and anathematized man's freedom of 
government, of belief, of thought, of speech, of the press and of 
action; universal suffrage, universal education and all efforts for 
future amelioration. The Syllabus binds you, hand and foot, 
gags your mouth, hushes your voice and delivers you over, pros- 
trate, at the feet of the confessional and the despotism in church 
and State. Such were once the traditions and the aspirations of 
the official church and, historically, they are as yet the same. 

In presence of such a dread defiance, a few Hebrew ministers, 
convened then (1870) in Cleveland, felt inspired with the Macca- 
bean courage, and deemed it their sacred duty to take up the 
gauntlet flung into the blushing face of the 19th century, of 
modern democracy and of civilization. As a protest against the 
Syllabus, those Hebrew ministers proclaimed the noble religious 
and social platform of Judaism. We have above seen it. The 
reader knows it, it is saliently and diametrically opposed to the 
Syllabus ; it vindicates and upholds the Magna Charta of human 
rights. In the above discussion of our theme, we have again 
and again emphasized these grand, humanitarian and universal, 
doctrinal, spiritual, moral, social and political principles of the 
Mosaic Religion. They are the platform this Code and faith 
stand upon. Do you detect there any privileges of race, any 
prejudice of sect? Can you suggest any other set of principles 
upon v/hich all men can peaceably unite as brethren ? No ! it is 
the only one, that of the Decalogue, there is no other one ! The 
civilized world has long ago, silently, mentally, adopted it, at 
least in theory. The best and noblest of all races stand and act 
upon it. Our noble United States Constitution is framed upon it. 
Educated, fair-minded people of all creeds admit that "the right- 
eous of all sects will enjoy eternal life." All profess that : "Love 
thy neighbor as thy self" applies not alone to the members of such 
a creed and such a denomination, but to the entire human family. 
All believe in civil and religious liberty, in government for the 
good of the entire people, exercised by the best of the people. All 
expect man's messianic redemption by the elevation and frater- 
nization of the human race; its improvement by education, fru- 
gality, better economics and morality; by freedom, work justice 



230 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

and sympathy. And all that stands upon the immovable rock 
of the Legislation at Sinai, upon the eternal basis of the Deca- 
logue. 

Nevertheless the official v^orld hesitates to fully accept the 
foundation upon which this platform stands : The divine Unity ! 
Can this declaration of principles, can the Decalogue stand with- 
out Monotheism; without ''I am the Eternal?". . .No! Hesitat- 
ingly, slowly, yet surely, the bright day of the Divine Unity and 
of the human fraternization is approaching. Some more instruc- 
tion imparted to the people, a little more outspokenness on the 
part of the expounders, teachers and the educated classes, and 
Monotheism will prevail, the last creedal discrimination will dis- 
appear. Jew and Gentile, already one in the sciences and the 
State, will be one in doctrine too. Then Jew and Gentile will 
pray together in the words of Maleachi (H. 10), "Have we not 
all one father, has not one God created us all, why shall we not 
be true to one another ! And the Eternal Father will graciously 
look down upon his reconciled children. He will unite them all, 
in justice and sympathy. The Malkhus Shaniaim, the Kingdom of 
heaven will dawn upon earth and together they will proclaim : 
''Hear O Israel-mankind, the Eternal Being is God, the Eternal 
is One." 

All hail to you, O Israelites, all hail to you, children of Adam, 
the great day of redemption is approaching, its footsteps are 
visible on the heights of human intellect. Let everyone of us 
contribute towards its definite arrival. Let every one do it by 
kindness and truthfulness, by enlightenment and education, by 
dropping all prejudices and antiquated preconceptions against his 
fellow-men, of whatever creed, race, or country; by honest work, 
correct thinking, modest demeanor, active virtue and humane 
sympathy. 1 Let us therefore not be discouraged by the slow 
advance of mankind, the tardy arrival of the Messiah. Let 
every one assist and strenuously contribute towards the advent 
of the epoch foretold by the sages and prophets of old and of 
modern times : ''When the kingdom of heaven will improve the 
Vv^orld and one God be universally acknowledged ; when all idola- 
tries will disappear and m.ake room for the great messianic time 
of reason and justice, when God will be one and humanity one.^ 



ilNIicha; and Lessing's Nathan the Wise. 
2Adoration praj'er. Sach. 14, 10. — Is. 52, 7. 



23t 



VIII Study. 
ISRAEL; CHAMPION OF THE DECALOGUE. 

(II M., 19.8) "All God has spoken, we will do !" 

We have seen the Decalogue is the Central Doctrine of Mo- 
saism and the base of human civilization, advocated, pro- 
pounded and championed by Israel, its banner-bearer; that 
Israel is not the opponent, but the ethical teacher, marching 
in the van of mankind, during the last three thousand five 
hundred years; that this is his allotted, historical task, his 
providential mission, from Sinai to Washington. Let us now 
review history and see whether this is substantiated. 

Every people or group of men combined in a state, has a task 
to fulfill, a mission to accomplish, some elements of civilization, 
some part of the providential harmony in history, especially 
allotted to it, to work out. That task conscientiously and en- 
ergetically performed, the people thrives, holds its own, de- 
velops into ever larger proportions, into a historical nation, a 
great race ; failing to do so, it decays and dwindles into a tribe, 
a clan, a horde and is finally absorbed into and supplanted by 
another people, better adapted to fulfill its expectation and 
solve the providential problem. 

So the task of ancient Assyria, Babylonia and Persia w^as to 
do the work of unifying the hundreds of inimical and ever 
warring, petty states and clans and form vast, continental, as- 
similated nations, out of a host of conflicting, heterogeneous 
barbarians, by Bismarck's "blood and iron policy," Assur, 
Nabuchadnezzar, Dejocet, Cyrus really first practiced it. With 
greater success still did Rome take up their task, when they had 
collapsed. Rome cultivated the world-State-idea, in combina- 
tion with law, agriculture and professional warfare : From 753 
A. C. to 476 P. C. throughout twelve centuries, that was its 
historical mission. According to the myth, its founders, Rom- 
ulus and Remus were the sons of the god of war, they were 
suckled by a she-wolf, the elder then murdered the younger, 
occupied alone the throne and made war, the state-idea 
the nerve of the Romans. The spirit of that harsh and gloomy 
myth is the true historical cue to Rome's problem. Phoenicia, 
Carthage and their numerous colonies built up commerce, in- 
dustries, crafts, navigation and colonization. That was their 



232 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

providential problem : To connect the different fractions of 
mankind separated by mountains, deserts, seas and great dis- 
tances, and make them the highways and connecting links of 
far away peoples. As Persia and Rome founded empires on 
land, so they bound up and civilized maritime dominions no 
less wonderful. Another task was that of the Greek, far-famed 
Peninsula. The Hellenic, multiple, puny republics were great 
still in another sense. They cultivated freedom, manhood, 
patriotic wars, arts and sciences. Puny Greece whose terri- 
tory, north and south combined, would not have satisfied one 
of the Persian satraps, which ''had hardly standing room for 
the Persian hosts counting by millions," puny Greece produced 
in the higher realms of human activities, more genius and 
talent than all the other contemporaneous peoples put together 
— one people excepted, the Jewish one. This people and the 
Greek one became the great factors of human civilization, the 
two wheels of the globe's chariot of advance. Even so have mod- 
ern nations their historical allotments, achievements and their 
own national genius. Russia seems to have inherited the 
Medo-Persian task, agglomeration of states by brute force. 
The Teutonic races regenerated the effete Romano-Greek so- 
ciety, first by infusing into it fresh blood and spirit, then by 
their purer civilization, derived from their recent biblical eth- 
ics. England, Holland and the United States of North America 
appear to continue the problems of Phoenicia, Carthage and 
Greece combined, viz. : the cultivation of freedom, political and 
social, on one hand, of commerce, industry and dominion of 
the sea on the other hand. France and Italy appear to be heirs 
to the versatility and impulsiveness of Athens especially, for 
good and for bad. We now arrive at the other great factor of 
hum.an advance, Israel. As all the great races, even so the Hebraic 
one, has its own special, historical mission in the human con- 
cert, conforming to its providential genius; Israel's task is re- 
ligion. Religion in its broadest sense, the ethical obligations, 
activities and aspirations, the moral instincts of human nature, 
the cultivation of duty, piety, goodness, equity, all that is most 
useful to civilized society ; the Categoric Imperative : That 
man's motive and rule of conduct should not be power, interest, 
pleasure, wealth, but wisdom, conscience, truth, justice — duty ! 
Our duty because so ordained by God, by the world's pre- 



ISRAEL AS THE CHAMPION. 233 

established Moral Order; because it is the rule of Eternal 
Wisdom, Justice, fitness, inherent in nature and proclaimed by 
the voice of God — that is Israel's great contribution, that is his 
mission to mankind. Some Greek sages guessed it darkly, the 
Prophets clearly saw and distinctly revealed it, and Israel 
heroically championed it. 

When Israel stood around Horeb, three thousand and five 
hundred years ago, narrates a hoary biblical tradition, listening 
to the world-redeeming revelation which has since become the 
Great Charter of civilization, man's Bill of Rights and Duties; 
when he listened to the grand, far-reaching ideal : "Ye shall 
be unto me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation," viz. : a 
free, moral, cultivated people, with no nobles and no mob, no 
plutocracy and no paupers, no Brahmans and no Pariahs, but 
each and every one a free man and a citizen, working and think- 
ing, knowing and doing his duty and enjoying his rights, an 
equal member of the national democracy — then they answered 
(II M., 19, 6-8) "All the Eternal has bidden we will do." 

It will be the theme of this chapter and this volume to show 
that this tradition is confirmed by history. History proves 
that from Sinai to Shilo, Karmel, Jerusalem, the Diaspora and 
Washington, for three thousand and five hundred years, in all 
great emergencies and crises, Israel collectively, as a people, 
representing one socio-ethical doctrine, has kept his hoary 
promise, has clung to his task, has never consulted interest, 
popularity, ease or power, but alone and only duty, conscience ; 
that he has resigned country, sacrificed home, comfort, life, 
and did what conscience bade him do ; did what he believed 
that : "God has spoken." Through vicissitudes unparalleled 
and harrowing suflferings, he has proved himself true to his 
milliennial mission, to his solemn promise at Sinai : "V/hatever 
the Eternal has spoken, we will do."^ Israel has never sur- 
rendered, never given up his providential task. God with thee ! 
March on, bear and abide, thou historical sufiferer, onward! No 
surrender ! 



(II M. 19, 8—24, 7) ytDtJ^ji nsj^y: .n^v^ n^ nnn isj'n ^3 1 



234 

"LE GUARDE MEURT ET NE SE REND PAS." ^ 

There is a modern, historical legend with a pointed motto, 
v/ell illustrating our theme, viz.: When in 1815 C. E., near 
by the Hollandish village of Waterloo, the French Grand 
Army under Napoleon, was finally beaten by Wellington and 
Bluecher, and proudly summoned to surrender^ the imperial 
guards shouted in reply: 'Xa Guarde meurt et ne se rend pas." 
"The Guard dies, but will not surrender." This legend in 
French history, is a reality in Jewish history, a rousing fact, 
proven and demonstrated there for thirty-five centuries, a 
stern deed, evidenced and repeated on a hundred battlefields, 
over and over, during the career of the Patriarchal people, the 
imperial guard of Monotheism, the Decalogue, the One Living 
God, mankind's Charter and platform. The people of Sinai 
did answer and act upon the motto : "The Guard dies, but sur- 
renders not." Israel has had a hundred Waterloos in his mil- 
lennial history. Frorr. Moses to Washington and Roosevelt, a hun- 
dred times he has been challenged and vehemently called upon to 
surrender, and every time he shouted back : "Israel dies, but sur- 
renders not !" 

In our present time of skepticism, worldliness, chilling 
selfishness and prudence, in both the camps, Jewish and Gen- 
tile, with antagonistic anti-Semitism on one hand, and on the 
other religious indifferentism, it is the sacred duty of the pro- 
phetic "watchman in the night" to raise his voice and thrill 
the heart and the conscience of the reader with the recital, the 
picture, the deeds and the sufferings of the past, that our young 
may learn how to grapple with the difficulties of the present and 
how to vanquish them. 

IHVH'S BATTLES. 

During the long period between Moses and Ezra (1500 — 460 
B. C.), Israel was yet but a federation of tribes, one of the 
many peoples inhabiting Khanaan, rather held together alone 
by race and history, not yet fully conscious of their identity 
in religion, nationality and racial task, far from Monotheism in 
reality, constantly amalgamating with the surrounding clans in 



iThe Guard dies, but surrenders not! First published in part in 
1870, Jewish Messenger, New York. 



IHVH'S BATTLES. 235 

creed and matrimonial unions. Thus Eliahu (I Kings, 18.21) 
forcibly brought out the crisis of differentiation: *'Why do 
you halt between two ways? Why sit between two stools? 
Why are you wavering betw^een Ihvh and Baal, montheism 
and polytheism, right and might, duty and interest, virtue and 
sensuality? And that was a happy crisis. The people awoke 
at his powerful voice and dimly realized that Ihvh, the Su- 
preme Being, is God, not Baal and Ashtore^"h. So the ball 
began rolling against idolatry, and at the time of Ezra, Mono- 
theism came out victorious, with pure religion, religion not 
as a barren scheme of empty ceremonialism, but as a pregnant 
program of human life, of virtue, wisdom and useful activity. 

From Zerubabbel and Ezra to the Maccabeans (535 — 167) 
Jewish consolidation and assimilation began to take place. The 
original tw^elve clans of the Benai-Israel and the later tw^o 
opposition empires and claims of Ephraim and Jehuda, fused 
into the one people and country of Judaea. The remnants of 
the aborigines, Moebites, Edomites, etc., were all absorbed. 
After a thousand years of warfare and strife, they gradually 
became one nation and one doctrine : Monotheism and Israel, 
Judaism and the Decalogue. They became also one blood and 
race, homegeneous in feeling and in creed. That full and 
rinal unification took place within Judaea and Judaism. Whilst 
without^ the final differentiation between Israel and paganism 
was effected. Monotheism definitely separated from polythe- 
ism. A Jew^ meant not simply an inhabitant of Judaea, but one 
distinguished by creed, deed, life, habits and speech from other 
nationalties — just as much as white from black. The world 
then, was simply marked out by these dividing lines, Jewish 
and Gentile, monotheistic and polytheistic, duty and pleasure, 
justice and interest, purity and sensuality. Judaism was not 
a purely theological, religious or metaphysical denomination ; 
no, it was sharply defined and differentiated in practical life, in 
food, drink and dress, in education, speech, habits, thinking, 
believing and feeling. 

When now 167 B. C. Antiochus IV (Epiphanes) arose with 
the determined design, the arms and terrors of his all-power, 
as the head of the then greatest empire of the world, to efface 
that distinction and assimilate Jew and Gentile, when he called 

Maurice Fluegel's Exodus, Moses and the Decalogue. 



236 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

upon the Jews to surrender their doctrinal and practical peculiarit- 
ies, merge with others and become Greeks, they stoutly an- 
swered : No ! ''Whatever God has bidden, we shall do — No sur- 
render !" The Syrian Great king displayed his overwhelming 
forces and w^aged his bloody war against the Hebraic nationality, 
without leaders, arms and treasury, nevertheless it insisted : *'The 
guard (of the Decalogue) dies, but surrenders not !" Nearly thirty 
years that Maccabean warfare lasted. Judaea was totally devas- 
tated and ruined. Not two stones were left in the same place. 
Every hill became a fortress, every iron an arm, every man a 
patriot and a soldier, everything was staked upon that issue : re- 
ligion and nationality. At last the Graeco-Syrian empire yielded, 
was vanquished and shattered. The dynasty of the Seleucidae, 
the heirs to the largest part of Alexander's world-empire, split in 
opposite factions and became a prey to Rome and its neighbors. 
Whilst puny Judaea remained the victor, for a time a considerable 
power, the cradle of that spirit destined to conquer paganism. 

JERUSALEM AND ROME. 

From the rise of the Maccabeans to the struggle against Rome, 
Israel prepared himself for his world-contest. Israel, monotheism 
and Decalogue on one side ; Rome and the world and poy- 
theism on the other. That epoch lasted from 170 B. C. to 70 P. C. 
Jerusalem and Rome were respectively the capitals of these two 
programs : Monotheism or polytheism, duty or interest, force or 
right, man's two poles. The Jewish world had the spirit, the 
Gentile one the sword. So each proved the stronger in its own 
domain, hence the terrible clash and shock. The Roman state- 
religion was unhinged and wavered. It had lost its hold upon 
the people, and the Gentile masses began to listen to the call that 
"from Zion comes the law, and the word of God from Jerusalem." 
Rome, Alexandria, Antiochia, Damascus apparently inclined to- 
ward the Decalogue. The gods of the Olympus paled and faded, 
and ever more discredited. The Gentiles turned their eyes toward 
the faith and the morality of Jerusalem. Greek sages still taught 
ethics, but they had no basis to build upon. The Olympian pow- 
ers were mere phantoms, abstractions and often rather quoted as 
examples for vice. The state was unhinged since the fall of the 



JERUSALEM AND ROME. 237 

Julians.^ The legions now created the Caesars, four emperors 
struggled for mastery. Rome rested solely on intrigues and the 
sword. Sensualism, ambition, brute force, cunning and over- 
reaching were put up as the standard of wisdom. Society felt 
dismayed. Negation is no base for life. The people need a posi- 
tive, encouraging, spiritual principle, and for that they looked 
up to — Jerusalem. After the decay of Graeco-Syria, Rome be- 
came the head of the Gentile world, and hence the great opponent 
of Jerusalem. The two represented, respectively, might and right, 
iron and spirit, war and peace, conquest and work, sensuality and 
duty, pleasure and holiness, the monotheistic Decalogue and 
Olympian polytheism. So the conflict became unavoidable, bitter, 
desperate, one of life and death.^ Mighty Rome was deeply 
shaken by it. Four emperors, as said, claimed her throne. Gaul 
and Germany arose in arms, the empire tottered fearfully. She 
used her best legions and generals with the entire pagan world 
on her side to vanquish puny, isolated Judaea, after a fierce, bloody 
war of four generations from 63 B. C. and Pompaeus to 70 P. C., 
Vespasian and Titus. At last Rome and Asia, combined, conquered 
Jerusalem, reduced her to a heap of ashes, killed, dispersed 
and scattered her children, who died for her cause, first in Ju- 
daea, soon wherever there was a Jewish settlement throughout 
Asia and Africa. They perished under the Sinaic war cry : ''The 
guard dies, hut surrenders notT 



1 Tacitus histor., liber 1, II. Opus aggredior opimum casibus, atrox 
praeliis, discors seditionibus, ipsa etiam pace saevum. Quatuor Principes 
ferro interemti. Trina bella civilia plura externa ac plerumque per- 
mixta . . . . Jam vero Italia novis cladibus, vel post longam sseculorum 
seriem repetitis, afflicta. Haustae aut obrutse urbes. . . .Urbs incendiis 
vastata, consumtis antiquissimis delubris, ipso Capitolio civium mani- 
bus incenso: pollutse caeromonias: magna adulteria: plenum exiliis 
mare: infecti caedibus scopuli. Atrocius in urbe saevitum. Nobilitas, 
opes, omissi gestique honores pro crimine, et ob virtutes certissimum 
exitium, 

2 Tacitus histor. liber 5, XXVIII. At major belli moles in Judaea 
agitabatur. Titus, cum cuncta expugnandis Hierosolymis apta strux- 
isset, adulto jam vere, operi institit, morarum impatiens. Utrimque 
paribus animis certatum .... 

Ibid. 30. Nee hostilium virium aspectus, nee promissa, ne horrenda 
quidem fames, quae jam saeviebat, feroces animos molliere. Immo ipsi 
transfugae, Titi dementia in castra Romana recepti, occulta medita- 

bantur crimina Ultionemque nova ruina parabat Joannes. . . .Simonis 

enim instinctu, tres juvenes urbe, raptis facibus, egressi, machinas 

aliis aggeribus impositas, per medios hostes, per tela, per gladios, 

incendendas susceperunt, et incendere Adverse casu baud fracta 

Titi constantia. 



238 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

But their soul, the spirit of Jerusalem, did not die. The Deca- 
logue was not buried under her ruins. No ! The Decalogue con- 
quered Rome's sword. Jerusalem, collapsed in Judaea, re-arose, 
phoenix-like, out of her ashes — in Rome. Rome putting her foot 
on the neck of her rival, crucifying her defenders by the thou- 
sands, throwing them to the lions in the circus, selling them by 
the hundreds of thousands as slaves in her markets — Rome soon 
knelt before her doctrine and her humble exponents in her own 
capitol. With dismay she heard repeated in her own temples the old 
Judaeai shout re-echoing from the prophets: ''From Zion goes 
forth the teaching and the word of God from Jerusalem." Jupi- 
ter-Zeus had to leave his place in the capital and yield it to the 
foot-stool of Israel's Only One. Mt. Olympos had to bend down 
and take upon its shoulders the Mount Moriah. The statutes 
of the divinities were hurled into dust before the memories of 
the leaders, prophets, bards and psalmists of Juda and of Ephraim. 
As announced by Isaiah : In days to come will the Mount of the 
house of Ihvh be exalted above all the mounts and thereto the 
nations will stream in pilgrimage (Is. II. 2)." 

So after Rome had bodily destroyed Jerusalem, Jerusalem's 
spirit shattered the Roman sword. The Roman imperial sword 
was broken and the cross erected instead, the cross to which Rome 
had been nailing the Judaean patriots for nearly two centuries. 
That same cross now became the symbol for Rome's ecclesiastical 
empire, the scepter in the hands of her spiritual rulers, the popes, 
who came to occupy Caesar's throne as — successors to a Jewish 
teacher crucified by her centuries ago.^ She claimed and ruled 
the Roman world in the name of Sinai, the Decalogue and the 
Judaean moralist ! The disciples of that man, a handful of en- 
thusiasts, armed indeed, not with the sword of Rome, but with 
the spirit of Jerusalem, overturned Mt. Olympos as did the Ti- 
tans of old, by the spell of the teachings of Mt. Moriah under the 
aegis of the Decalogue and monotheism, under the old war-cry 
of: ''From Zion com.es the law, and the word of God from Je- 
rusalem." They chased the Olympian powers into the rural dis- 
tricts, hence called pagans and converted the proud gods into 
humble, poor devils — daimonia. The Roman world, accepting 
that Judaean Teacher as their Messiah, apparently accepted mono- 
theism, the Bible and the Decalogue, in the train of that man. 



iSee Messiah Ideal, Vol. II, on that. 



239 
DECALOGUE AND POLYTHEISM. 

Yes, apparently, but not really ! Happy for the world and for 
Israel if that had been the case. Unfortunately it was not so. 
The Gentile conversion was too hasty, hence superficial. It was 
simply a compromise with the ancient mythology, so much warned 
against by the Bible. Concessions after concessions were made 
on vital points, and the Gentile New- Judaism soon appeared to 
be but a disguised polytheism, a crude, halfway compromise ef- 
fected by state-craft. The new creed was so latitudinal an, so 
broad, vague, elastic, that any and every nation, Syrians, Egyp- 
tians, Greeks, Romans, could easily persuade itself that it teaches 
but her own inherited doctrines and old views, differing in words 
and forms alone. The Gentile world was thus allowed to freely 
enter the wide portals of the church on their own terms, with all 
their idols and proclivities, each retaining their old polytheistic 
beliefs, tastes and practices. Could Israel join such a program? 
The Decalogue was formally adopted, but after mutilation and 
decapitation : 'T am thy God, thou shalt have no other gods" — 
had to give way to trinity : God-Eternal yielded to God-born, 
dead and resurrected; God One and pure spirit, to God-incar- 
nate, man-god, yea, even to images ; the harmonious world "very 
well created," to one made by the Evil one; earth's noblest crea- 
ture, man, made in the image of God, viz. : with reason, free will, 
virtue and happiness, became the son of hell, heir to unavoidable 
sin and disappointment; all creation, withered and accursed, a 
failure, a vale of tears, the inheritance of the devil. Man was dis- 
honored, tainted with original sin, made for pain, error and mis- 
fortune, his best deeds and virtues but shining vices, and all his 
efforts of no avail to ward off perdition — because Adam and 
Eve had enjoyed of the forbidden fruit ! That crime required 
that God himself, or at least his son, should expiate it on the 
cross and atone for — those only who profess to believe ! believe 
in things contrary to all reason, whilst all other men are to remain 
irretrievably lost . . . 

All these strange doctrines did not grow on the tree of the 
Bible. They came from Judaean mysticism and from Persian, 
Greek, Egyptian mythologies. Never did Jesus or his Judaean 
apostles teach such. Paul and the Gnostics did that first, next the 
Gentile Christians of later centuries. They were finally elabo- 



240 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

rated and formulated by the still later imperial hierarchs, not as 
a well digested, logical, harmonious whole, but rather as a theo- 
logical mosaic, an ecclesiastical compromise, and a political make- 
shift, trying to satisfy all, and having in view diverse countries, doc- 
trines and peoples, so as to make each believe that his own dogmas 
are openly or silently confirmed, and that by changing the name, 
every one retained his old religious substance. That was smart 
politics, but poor logic and poorer theology. And that compro- 
mise became doctrine and part of orthodox Christianity. Could 
Juda accept and abide by such a motley Judaism ! The heathen 
world entering into the Church and claiming to represent reno- 
vated, reformed New-Judaism, did not only tamper with the lead- 
ing rational doctrines of old Judaism, no, it radically changed its 
practice and theory, life and tenets. The entire positive command- 
ments and polity of the Pentateuch had to give way to the pre- 
vious Gentile practices. The Sabbath and holidays were abolished. 
The Alosaic Law, insisted on by Jesus still as the will of Ihvh, 
and all-important to man's salvation — that very Mosaic Law was 
declared by Paul, as "the root of evil," good to stimulate sin, not 
to save ! Faith in the Triune-God, in the ]\Ian-God, was alone de- 
clared as the condition of salvation. Old Judaism postulated good 
deeds, as the outcome of the correct creed, of rational principle, 
as the fruit from the root; Paulinian Christianity declared that 
creed is all and deed is nothing, all human virtues being but 
*' brilliant z'iccs/' Old Judaism wisely hedged in and consecrated 
the pure human instincts, joys and aspirations. The rabbis called 
that ''building up the world. "^ New-Judaism withered them as 
the fangs of the devil ; so was marriage, work, providing for to- 
morrow. The monastery was the ideal, the world not worth 
existing. Old Judaism taught one law for priest and commoner, for 
native and foreigner,^ a free state, free citizen and free church, 
all obeying the one and same law. New Judaism as old polytheism, 
kept up discriminating laws, castes and conditions and made the 
Church the hand-maid of state-rulers. Constantine the Great, made 
the church subservient to his ambitions : he was, according to op- 
portunity, an unbeliever, a polytheist, a Christian and a zealot, 
ever watching the drift of popular opinion. — Whilst again later, 



iSanhedrin 24b. Mishna and Gemara: lushab ha-olom. 

2(111 M. 24, 22) One right for all of you, the alien as the native. 



DECALOGUE AND POLYTHEISM. 241 

his priestly successors at Rome and Byzantine ruled the state as 
the hand-maid of the church. The popes claimed ownership of the 
world as the representatives of Peter, Peter as the vicar of the 
messiah, the messiah as the vicar of God ; three assumptions with 
as many usurpations, all against the Decalogue. Thanks to this 
threefold usurpation, they assumed a fourth one, viz : to be heir to 
the Caesars, the masters of the occidental world and rivals of 
the emperors, east and west. 

For long these dangerous claimants fomented divisions, hates 
and wars in Christendom and for a while actually succeeded in 
being considered as the spiritual and political heads, the suzerains 
of the world — all as the successors of a Jewish moralist who had 
died, now some nineteen centuries ago, who had disclaimed prop- 
erty and war, who would not have two coats, nor two meals with- 
out giving one to his poorer brother. Soon these crowned popes 
strangled conscience, upset boundaries, deposed kings, established 
bloody inquisitions, proscribed whole nations who perished for 
their conscience and portioned out the world at their pleasure 
Now all that polity began to be initiated and enacted since the 
fourth cenhury, with Constantine and the Council of Nicaea, and 
was the fatal consequence of the hasty compromise made with 
the polytheistic converts, the Gentile Christians, a compromise 
accepting de jure, the Decalogue and idolatry de facto. Trinity 
the goddess-mother, the cross emblem, the cult of im.ages, relics 
and saints, the abolition of holidays and the seventh day sabbath, 
etc., all these were concessions made to Egyptian, Syrian, Greek 
and Roman mythologies. Judaism teaches religion as a micans 
to enlighten, improve and pacify men. The polytheistic view is 
that religion is a fit tool in the hands of the rulers to deceive, 
frighten and subdue the people. Could Israel join hands? Could 
Old- Judaism fuse and abdicate in favor of New-Judaism? Was 
prophetism fulfilled? Did the wolf and the lamb graze together? 
No ! Hence Israel had to go on and continue the battle. He did 
it at any cost and any price : 'The guard dies and never sur- 
renders !" 



242 

ISLAM AND THE JEWS. 

We come to the rise of Islam. From the fourth century P. C. 
onwards, the retrogression towards polytheism passed on rapidly. 
The remnants of the Jew-Christians, viz. : Jews believing that 
Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah, were pushed back and thrown 
out of the ecclesiastical councils ; and Christianity, the New- 
Judaism, ever more loomed away from its miOther-religion, grad- 
ually and in fact it became disguised polytheism. Worship was 
not paid to God-the-Father, very little even to God-the-Son, but 
mostly to Mary-the-Goddess-Mother. As in Egypt, Isis was the 
leading goddess, as in Greece Athene, in Rome Minerva, the 
female cult was preponderant. Even idolatry was not eradicated. 
After Mary, the new saints, their relics, their images and statues 
had their shrines and worship. Priest-craft, miracle-workings, 
and beatifications abounded and found their popular veneration. 
Ambition, self-apotheosis and overreaching joined superstition, 
brutalized the masses and made rank scoffers of the classes. Thus 
from 325 to 600 P. C. gradually true religion had dwindled away, 
superstition and priest-craft remained, and reaction had to come. 
We stand now at the threshold of a new historical epoch (622 
P. C.) That reaction against hypocrisy and idol worship came, it 
started from an Arab-Jewish center, Mecca, the leading city of 
Arabia. Many Jewish clans had fled thereto from devastated 
Judaea, had occupied free territories and erected there independ- 
ent principalities. Others lived in Arabian communities, as in 
Mecca, and influenced them by their higher culture, purer morals, 
rational religion, finally also by intermarriage, to such an extent 
that the Jewish worship and race were very popular there. The 
religious upheaval started in Mecca. Its initiator was Moham- 
med, a member of its leading clan, the Koreishites, a nephew of 
the Guardian of the Kaaba, the national Arabian Temple. Moham- 
m.ed was of Arabian parents, not unmixed v/ith Israelitish blood. He 
had surely Jewish connections and teachers of whom he had re- 
ceived popular instructions in Hebraic views, legends and doctrines, 
a deal of biblic and Midrashic lore. Of such materials, fused with 
native Arabian ideas and tastes, he formed his socio-religious 
system, later brought out as his bible, the Koran. He taught: 
There is but one God, the only one of the Jewish Bible by Moses 
and the prophets. He is Eternal, pure spirit. Creator and Provi- 
dence. There is no divine incarnation, no vicar, no son of God 



ISLAM AND THE JEWS. 243 

and no images of Him. Idolatry is the greatest abomination. The 
Old Testament is God-inspired, binding in its moral and doctrinal 
part upon his Arabian followers, not its other local and purely 
Hebraic elements. He accepted, at first, the Sabbath and the 
Atonement Day, as also Jerusalem as the Kebla of his adherents, 
and aspired to be recognized by the Jews as Prophet or Messiah. 
He had sincerely adopted the doctrinal part of the Decalogue, but 
not so its practical ethics, the second half of it; here he had to 
reckon with his Arabian environments and followers. They would 
not easily accept the universality of its moral law peremptorily 
forbidding murder, lust, treachery and robbery, and Israel could 
not accept a Messiah without a moral law. So they had to fight — 
which they did under the war-cray of: "Whatever the Eternal 
has bidden, we shall do. The guard dies, but surrenders not !" 
So they lost the great opportunity of gaining a powerful leader 
and friend. They lost Arabia, several independei^t principalities, 
hundreds of thousands of their own, slaughtered or sold as slaves 
— but they clung to their identity, to the Decalogue, in doctrine, 
and practice. The Arabian Jews were startled and delighted at 
his advent. But when he asked recognization, as prophet, leader, 
and Messiah, when they closer examined into his aspirations and 
habits, his Arabian sensuality, his Bedouin cupidity, his warlike 
rapacity and unscrupulousness, his cruelty, ambitious wars and 
greed of conquests, all perfectly natural in a native Arab, bred 
among his own people, but scantily favored with a glimpse into 
the higher ethics of the Jews and the Bible — when the Arabian 
Jews compared their own biblical ethics with those of the Arabian 
Prophet, the Messiah portrayed by Isaiah, Micah, etc., with that 
embodied in Mohammed, they could not accept him as prophet 
and their exponent. And Mohammed was not great enough to 
condone with their scruples. From a warm friend he became a 
bitter, remorseless, ruthless foe, and exterminated them from 
Arabia. 

THE CRUSADES AND THE JEWS. 

The tw^elfth and thirteenth centuries brought out a new dark 
phase of history, the Crusades. The Occident and the Orient 
engaged in a gigantic duel. Europe vv^as the aggressor for this 
time, not Asia. It was a tremendous effect from a cause w^hich 



244 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

to us moderns is seemingly inadequate. Christian Europe rose 
against Mohammedan Asia and for two centuries battled over the 
possession of a — grave, for puny Palestine with the grave of the 
founder of the Nazarene faith. During two hundred years that 
duel was fought, without any result whatever, except perhaps 
that the prestige of the Church came out damaged and that the 
thick ice-crust of madiaeval clerical rule began to burst and melt 
away at the sun of the slowly dawning Renaissance. The Sara- 
cens remained masters of the battle ground. But during this 
long clash between the creeds of Nazareth and of Medina, a 
tragic interlude was going on, mournfully telling upon the Jewish 
people living scattered among the fierce contending parties. 
Whilst the Christian hosts rolled on as a lava-stream against the 
infidel Mohammedans, they remem.bered that on their way there, 
they met with myriads of Jews who had no sympathy with their 
fanatical warfare, who claimed that the Promised Land belonged 
not to either of the belligerents, but to themselves, who were, 
moreover, unbelievers, decried as decides, who had no anris for 
self-defense, but w^ere reported to have gold. These frequent 
groups of Jewish settlements, at that time, perhaps the only green 
spots on earth of law-abiding, orderly, working people, among 
that semi-barbarous mediaeval "society of wolves and bears," the 
red-crossed marauders attacked with the savage and fanatical 
challenge of : "Baptism or death !" This was the horrifying inter- 
mezzo of the unreasonable strife between cross and crescent. A 
dreadful havoc took place. Whole districts of Jewish peaceful 
and industrious colonies were pillaged and devastated, entire coni- 
munities were slaughtered and destroyed, yea, by hundreds of 
thousands. Western Israel perished nearly all, but they yielded 
not their faith : *'The guard dies, but surrenders not.". . . 

SPAIN. 

The same mournful motto was illustrated at the end of the 
fifteenth century. Spain and Portugal had, for many centuries, 
been engaged in deadly feud with the Moors, the former masters 
of the once, fiercely, Christian Gothic Pyrenean peninsula. That 
Romano-Gothic population there had yielded to the Moors and 
retired within the inaccessible natural fastnesses of the frontier 



SPAIN. 245 

mountains. Gradually Moorish Spain decayed, her erst brilliant 
and powerful monarchy split into several principalities. The 
last one, Granada, was finally conquered by united Christian 
Spain under Ferdinand and Isabella. These then determined 
upon the total expulsion of the Moors from regained Spain, they 
being still too numerous and warlike, hence dangerous. As to her 
large Jewish population, that was as yet spared and conciliated 
to the new catholic polity, seemingly treated as fellow citizens, 
and allowed to participate in the new state, society, honors and 
emoluments. They continued masters of the industries, com- 
merce, arts, sciences, navigation, and were thus possessed of office, 
wealth and power. But at last, when the Moors had been suc- 
cessfully and totally expelled, the turn of the Jews came. As the 
Pharaohs of old, the Spanish hierarchy and the princes feared : 
'Xest the children of Israel might increase, join the enemies and 
drive the natives out of the land."^ Apparently the Spanish-Hebrew 
citizens were its most useful population, counting no doubt over 
a million. But old Gothic popular prejudices were fiercely aroused 
against them : Misgivings of the church, jealousies of the nobil- 
ity, frequent risings of the mob, pillage and incendiarism, dra- 
gooning to the mass and forcible conversions were oft-repeated 
occurrences. At last they were plainly informed that they had to 
choose between baptism or exile. When Queen Isabella still hesi- 
tated to sign the decree of expulsion, Torquemada, her confessor, 
rushed into the royal council-room with the crucifix in hands, 
shouting: "Will you again sell Christ for a sum of money?" 
Isabella signed the decree of the banishment of the entire Spanish- 
Hebraic population. Apparently the majority thereof had grad- 
ually yielded, assuming the mask of Marranos, or Neo-Chris- 
tians. At least 300,000 of the remaining ostracized Jews left 
the Spanish peninsula. Many of whom were destroyed on the 
sea fleeing for Morocco or Turkish territories. They perished by 
the treachery of the captains of their boats, by sickness, pestilence 
and down right drowning. A mere remnant reached Turkey, 
Egypt, Palestine : "The guard dies, but will not surrender. . . . 
What God has bidden, we shall do.". . . 

III. M. I, 10. 



246 

WESTERN EUROPE, POLAND. 

The sixteenth century came on, with persecutions of the Jews 
in the West of Europe. England, France and West Germany 
envied Spain and Portugal for their good luck, having robbed 
their Judaic fellow citizens, killed a part and forcibly converted 
or expelled their entire Israelitish population. So the European 
Northwest imitated Spain. A decree of banishment was issued 
against them. Their grounded property nobody wanted to buy 
and it thus became worthless. They left with their families, their 
ancestral faith and the beggar's staff, under the old watchword : 
*'No surrender ! All the Eternal has spoken we shall do." 

They wandered to Eastern Europe, especially to Poland. This 
was then a vast empire, semi-civilized and but half Christianized. 
The aristocracy, Boyars, Shlachtis, owned and occupied the land, 
under a free, loose constitution, a limited monarchy, lax and dis- 
obeyed laws. They formed the upper social strata, the conquerors 
of the aboriginal subjugated inhabitants. Whilst these latter ones 
were the tillers of the soil, serfs, attached to the glebe, scarcely 
emerged from barbarism. This upper class, or nobility needed a 
middle class, brain-workers, industrials, skilled laborers, lower 
and higher mechanics, merchants, financiers, scholars, profes- 
sionals, artists, craftsmen, traders, middlemen between the barons 
and the peasant serfs ; to utilize, manufacture, transport and dis- 
tribute the raw produce and native commodities, by factory, shop, 
export, import, commerce and navigation to render their vast but 
backward emipire a productive member of the civilized world. The 
noblemen occupied their attention and leisure, as everywhere else, 
with sport, pohtics, gallantry and warfare ; the enslaved masses 
with the small trades and principally, agriculture. The middle 
link, the intermediate class, the brain-workers and skilled labor- 
ers, were missing. So the nobility eagerly invited the industrious 
Jews expelled from the West, to enter their country and society, 
leaving to them the open position, the rights and the emoluments 
of the badly missing middle class, the higher social workers, so 
urgently necessary between the lordly few and the serving masses. 
The newcomers were admitted to all the civil rights and also 
some of the political privileges. They promised to develop the 
resources of the country by their superior activity and civilization, 
their finances, sciences, industries, arts and business talents. It 
did not take long, and these new settlers began to prosper there 



WESTERN EUROPE, POLAND. 247 

and fulfil all that their Gentile hosts had reasonably expected of 
them. Juda's old wounds began to close, the bent exiles began to 
walk straight and erect. They increased in numbers, wealth and 
social importance. 

But soon a turn of fortune came on. The aristocracy grew 
more and more turbulent, impatient of law and especially of any 
and every strong and centralized government. Anarchy went on 
increasing. While neighboring grim Russia, Prussia, Austria pro- 
gressed in the opposite direction, they framed laws, insisted on 
civic justice and order, centralized the civil, military and political 
powers in the hands of the government and thus gained a great 
start, by social and political stability, over the light-hearted and 
disorderly Polish independent nobles. The inevitable came on, 
mutiny cropped up, factions became ungovernable. The Cos- 
sacks rebelled and made war upon the distracted Polish provinces, 
under a bold leader, Bogdan Chlemizky. The nobles retired into 
their lordly castles. But the inoffensive and defenseless Hebrews, 
having no fastnesses, no arms, no prestige and no leaders, became 
a prey to the marauders. They first ransomed themselves with 
their money. But the situation required iron; gold attracted 
rather the Cossacks. The isolated, defenseless Hebrews, reputed 
rich, were pillaged, many slaughtered ; as many more fled to the 
West of Europe, whence they had come over a century previously. 
The present German Jews are descendants of those Polish refu- 
gees; whilst the present millions of Hebrews in Poland, Russia, 
Roumania are the posterity of their once Germanic ancestors, 
hence their German jargon, intermixed with Slav and Hebrew. 

THE MARRANOES. 

About the same time, the seventeenth century, similiar religious 
and racial persecutions and under the same war-cry, were resusci- 
tated and enacted in Spain and in Portugal. Those hundreds of 
thousands of Hebrews who had there been forcibly converted to 
the Church, known then as Marranos, viz : converted Jews, con- 
tinued, in spite of their baptism, to be marked out to the populace 
as a suitable target for derision, malevolence, pillage and frequent 
onslaught. They were suspected of relapse, that under the mask 
of Christianity, they had remained secretly Jews ; a separate class. 



248 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

generally intermarrying only among themselves, keeping up their 
Judaic practices and idiosyncrasies, their aristocratic manners and 
separateness, their inherited wealth, their commercial monopolies, 
their international, secret relations, and that as pretended Chris- 
tians they were accaparating and occupying high offices in State, in 
Church and even at Court. They were especially suspected by 
the Church as Judaizing, viz. : as keeping up not only Jewish 
ideas and theories, strictly monotheistic and biblic, but, on special 
solemn occasions, practicing Jewish rites, customs, observances, 
dietary habits, discriminations in marriage, on Sabbaths, holidays 
and fast-days. They were thus under suspicion of being still 
Jews at heart and in mind. Tales were running that Spanish 
grandees were surprised in their secret conclaves, in garret or in 
cellar, in prayer, on the Atonement Day, or Passover Eve, fasting 
and confessing, or enjoying the unleavened cakes (Mazza) behind 
bolted doors.i Many court ladies were detected with an amulet, 
inscribed with the solemn credo (Shema), close to their bosom. 
Yea, Marrano bishops were found, officiating at church in their 
robes and crucifix — and a Hebraic talisman close to the heart. A 
rigid inquisitional tribunal was instituted, with spies and guard- 
ians to watch over renegades. Their servants, their creditors, 
their employees, their enemies were encouraged and abetted to 
espy and denounce them. At the least indices of ''judaizing," they 
were incarcerated, their fortunes sequestered or confiscated, their 
children torn from their arms and placed in monasteries. Whilst 
they personally had to answer to an inquisitorial interrogatory ; the 
wrack, wheel, thumbscrew and other torments were applied to 
their bodies to force a confession of apostasy. Such mysterious 
procedures, often auto-de-fe's on the market place were enacted to 
strike terror and enhance the awe for the holy mother, Church ! 

In such a manner hundreds of thousands of Marranoes were 
frightened back and kept within the folds of the faith of Rome, 
while myriads perished under tortures or in fire, and thousands 
found means of escape to North Italy and France ; especially to 
Holland, which was then breaking away from the tyranny of 
Spain and therefore inclined to tolerate those unhappy victims 
of fanaticism, priestcraft and tyranny combined. 



^ ^y "nnon TiDKS of the Agada, may be a remnant thereof, now said 

with open doors to guard against espionage. "Pour out thy wrath 
over the barbarians." 



249 

TRACES IN THE RITUAL. 

Marranos were forcibly converted Jews of Spain and Portugal. 
The etymology is very obscure. I give it as my own guess that 
it is derived from the corrupted popular pronunciation of the 
Hebrew word abarianim, root ahar, transgress, and at the same 
time, Bbri, Hebrew. Adrian, denoting a transgressing Hebrew, a 
Jewish Apostate. 

In the well-known introductory prayer of the Atonement Eve, 
we read: ''With the consent of the meeting on high and below 
(of God and the Congregation) we allow to pray with the 
Abarianim'' (the transgressors). That refers to the Marranos, 
and is a later intercalation of the Spanish period of enforced bap- 
tism. May be even, it is of earlier centuries of such forced con- 
versions frequent in mediaeval and later history. This intro- 
ductory Kol-N^idrai-pra.ytr intimates that such apostates were 
nevertheless considered as Jews, admitted to the Congregation at 
worship, and absolving them of their oaths of allegiance to the 
new faith forced upon them. 

A certain critical tact is my guarantee for this hypothesis. 
The reader may use his own judgment. Mark well, the root let- 
ters of Abarianim : y ^ *i the identical ones of both the words 
abar, trespass, and Ebri, Hebrew ; the rest are suffixes, ian and im. 
The bulk of that prayer shows on its face that it was composed 
much earlier than the Spanish period, in Syria-Babylonia, when 
religious vows were in vogue; later on neglected, and during the 
Spanish persecutions re-introduced, with the preamble and the 
conclusion alluding to the Marranos, half estranged, but still 
Jews at heart : "Let it be forgiven to the entire Congregation of 
Israel and to the convert dwelling among them," viz : the con- 
verted, Jewish Apostate, abariani'in-=- Marrano in slang. 

THE GHETTO. 

The eighteenth century arrived, when the Church felt bitterly 
disappointed on realizing that Spanish Judaism still exists and 
still clings to the old faith of the Decalogue ; that neither spolia- 
tion, exile, terrorism or even fire-death were potent enough to 
hold them in the spiritual ranks of the majority, though often 
enough dragooned Into the church. The hierarchy now invented 



250 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

a new method of conversion, the Ghetto, viz., ostracism and exile 
within the very Hmits of the cities. The Jews were ordered to 
remove from the respectable parts of each town and to settle apart, 
in dismal, out of the way lanes, suburbs or districts for themselves, 
separated by iron gates and walls from the rest of the place. They 
were thus bodily, ideally and socially divided off from the Chris- 
tian community, relegated into specially discriminated Jewish 
quarters, Jewries, Jew-lanes, and there treated as outcasts, gyp- 
sies and pariahs. Such Jewries were termed Ghetto, of a doubtful 
etymology (perhaps Hebrew Goloth, exile, or German Gasse, 
lane) ; located on the extremity of the town, a picked out gloomy, 
unhealthy quarter, close to the dumping grounds, the dunghills 
and swamps, with narrow crowded alleys, with dingy, petty, awk- 
ward-looking, many-storied huts, with little free space, light and 
air; locked up, from without, by frowning walls and iron gates, 
during every night; the near-by dumping grounds, the narrow 
lanes and crowded high houses rendering its climate the least 
salubrious. In day-time the Jew could go to town, peddling, shop- 
ping, or on his brokerage-errands, but well marked off from the 
rest of the population, by a yellow round patch of cloth, attached 
to his hat or on his breast, thus singled out as a target for the 
mob, exposed to insults, stones and pillage. He was not admitted 
to any public office, to any honorable employment, to the public 
schools, to any respectable trade, to gain a clean, honest morsel 
of bread. Alone the trades of pawn-broking, loaning out on in- 
terest, "usury," selling old clothes and peddling were kept open to 
him — or baptism ! So he remained in the Ghetto, economically 
a pauper, socially a pariah, industrially a drudge, but mentally 
and ethically very often by far superior to the dominant popula- 
tion, even to the nobles and the clerg}^ A gypsy politically and 
socially, he was still devoted to study, thinking, poetry; to Bible, 
Talmud, sciences, arts ; morally by far superior to his tormentors 
and his converters. Mendelssohn and his Jewish generation 
were reared and grew up in such a gloomy ghetto. Boerne, Heine 
and hundreds of compeers well knew it as the cradle of their race. 
The American and the French Revolutions broke out, proclaimed 
the equality of races and creeds, with freedom of conscience and 
universal suffrage. Lafayette and Mirabeau, Robespierre and 
St. Juste vindicated the freedom and equality of all men. So the 



THE GHETTO. 251 

Jew, too, shouted hosannah ! The Ghetto-walls crumbled and 
fell ; the inmates began to mingle with their fellowmen. The 
French Revolution did the great work of emancipation practically. 
The American one had preceded it theoretically. So dawned the 
nineteenth century. Was now the old war-cry silenced : Was 
Israel no longer asked to surrender or die? Let us continue and 
see. 

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

The nineteenth century was ushered in with the great tocsin 
and the Messianic trumpet of the American and the French Rev- 
olutions, by the sound of the rousing Marseillaise under the peace- 
motto of : Liberty, equality and fraternity ! An entire phalanx 
of Jewish bards, artists and enthusiastic writers, of the caliber of 
Heine, Boerne, Zunz, Auerbach, Meyerbeer greeted the new flag 
with their paeans and their styles. Thousands of Jewish youths 
enlisted under it, fought and died under it, in those gigantic con- 
tinental liberation wars. Israel, too, thought to be entitled to the 
benefits of the new era. The Ghetto-walls were pulled down un- 
der the blast of the freedom and equality cornet. Alas, but the 
reawakening from that fraternity dream soon followed. He had 
got his emancipation without the necessary struggle, the spring 
came without its previous storms, and it soon proved insecure. 
Liberty must be conquered, not obtained as a gift. Equality and 
freedom were first granted to them as French citizens, but soon 
came the bargaining, taking away and again doling it out by piece- 
meal and diverse discriminations. And this shameful game of 
cat and mouse, of wolf and lamb, has been going on during all 
this long nineteenth century : ''All human beings are free and 
equal ; all the inhabitants of the soil are citizens ; all tax-payers 
have the vote ; every duty corresponds to a right ; that is one 
phase. But soon another phase emerged : No ! The Jews are 
foreigners, aliens, not free, not equal, not citizens, they are 
Semites ! O shame ! At the very close of this vaunted nineteenth 
century we were dumbstruck at the horrifying shrieks from Rus- 
sian pogroms; from Roumanian noyades and expulsions ; by the 
French Dreyfuss cause celehre ; by East-European ritual-murder- 
trials. Daily we are astonished at the anti-Semitic venomous 



252 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

harvest springing up all over the area of modern civilization. It 
began with puny Roumania, where the writer of these pages made 
his first campaigns in defense of his unhappy countrymen, and 
where he labored and hoped in vain to carry their emancipation to- 
gether with that of the country.^ Therefrom, pest-like, it spread to 
Germany. Germany's pedants indorsed that modern social malady, 
anti-Semitism : The Jew is not to be hated for not believing in trin- 
ity, not on account of his religion, but of his race, his nationality. 
He is not an Aryan. No, he is a Semite. This silly theory would 
soon have blown over, if not for Russia, well prepared for such 
a dragon's seed, by its Moscovite barbarism, by its brutalized 
peasantry, by its fanaticized, diversely compounded populations. 
In that half-Asiatic Russia the Romano-Teutonic dragon-seed 
has developed most venomous, mephitic miasma. I do not wish 
to start any Cassandra forebodings : May be that cloud of barbar- 
ism will soon collapse and disappear, and may be not. It may 
spread throughout the civilized West and cover with its funeral 
ashes the face of more advanced Europe. The nineteenth century 
started under bright auspices, the twentieth shows a relapse. 

For two generations an inoffensive, semi-oriental population, 
counting by many millions, the very bulk of an ancient nationality, 
has been there ostracized, outlawed, at last banished and cast out. 
Old and young, gray heads, women in child-bed, delicate children, 
have been torn from their humble homes and dragged away, 
starving, in midwinter, to the Pale of Russia, or over her fron- 
tiers, into exile and destruction. Pogroms were planned and 
executed with the connivance, even with the foreknowledge of the 
rulers. Incendiarism, pillage, rape and murder were openly toler- 
ated, enacted, encouraged, in presence of the military, against an 
inoffensive, defenseless, law-abiding people, counting by millions 
— for being Jews, for clinging to the faith of their ancestors, for 
praying in the language of the Patriarchs and the very founders 
of earlier Christianity ! 

Even in Germany it is fashionable to Jew-bait, belittle the He- 
brew, set him down as an alien in his step-mother country; him 
who had lived there before Caesar conquered the Rhine, or Tra- 
janus subjugated the Dacians, for two thousand years there was 
his country, stood there the cradle of his children, was there the 



1 During the years 1859 to 1864. 



THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 253 

tomb of his fathers, for long centuries before Charlemagne plant- 
ed there the cross. And all these prophetic populations bear and 
suffer under the old war-cry: "The guard dies, but will not 
surrender !" 

We stand now in the twentieth century, and this war-shout rings 
still in our ears : The minorities must die or surrender ! Listen, 
hear ! The shrieks of the Poles in Prussia, of the Jews, Poles and 
Tartars in Russia, of the various oppressed in Bohemia, Ireland, 
Roumania, Galicia, Bosnia; the Fins and Germans on the Baltic 
shores ; anti-Semitism makes its appearance in Austria, France, 
even in England. Alas, have not there labored Huss and Coper- 
nicus, Joseph II. and Dome, Lessing and Mendelssohn, Kant and 
Humboldt? Here Mirabeau, Cremieux, Adolphe Franck, Gam- 
betta ; there Montefiore, Disraeli, Jessel. A thousand other liberal 
minded statesmen, scholars, writers, poets, artists have illustrated 
Europe. Still the minorities are aliens ! Still anti-Semitism ex- 
ists ! As in olden times of Pharaoh and of Haman, so later of 
the crusaders and the Spanish fury. So now of Plehva and Po- 
biedonostieff. The Moscovite scourge, the Vatican Syllabus and 
the German Jew-baiting — what an infernal pedigree belongs to 
anti-Semitism ! These battles for freedom, Milhamoth, Ihvh, 
have been fought from Sinai to the Seine and the Moscow, under 
the flag of the Decalogue, by the same monotheistic people, against 
the same Hamans, stupidity and selfishness. 

Thus for three thousand and five hundred years, from Sinai to 
Washington, since 1500, before, to 1900 post-Christian Era, Is- 
rael battled for the Decalogue. For that lapse of time, he sacrificed 
everything to his task, as the expounder and champion of the 
Organic Law of civilized society. We stand now in the first 
decade of the twentieth century. We may have in America over a 
million and a half Hebrews as citizens of this free country, from 
the very beginning started on the broad humanitarian basis of these 
Ten Words, on the platform of liberty, equality and fraternity; 
without any hierarchy or privileged classes; with separation of 
state and church ; with absolute freedom of conscience ; after men 
like Moses Montefiore, Ad. Cremieux, De Hirsch have shown the 
true capabilities of the Jew. And withal, fanatics and politicians 
have created anti-Semitism ! 



254 

AMERICA AND NEW JUDAEA. 

American Israel ! Times are now brighter, at least in the 
West, at least in this New World. Here at least I do believe 
there shall never be occasion for the war-whoop of Torquemada, 
Sergius and the imperial Cossacks ; to fight over those satanic 
warfares, a compound brew of old race-hatred and mystic doc- 
trines, confusedly amalgamated with brand-new economical jeal- 
ousies. Still, even in America a few such danger-specks over- 
hang our social sky. There exists here a party compounded of 
selfishness and race-pride, with a fringe of religious fanaticism, 
which clique may grow and become a real menace to the very 
foundations of this unsectarian society; a party which in the 
face of our United States Constitution strives at introducing prac- 
tical social discriminations on denominational and racial grounds ; 
which prides itself even of being at heart anti-Semitic, anti-Ro- 
manist, anti-Latinist, anti-Dutchman, which aims at creating here 
a dominant race and church, a blue-blood of some kind ; at fanning 
up slumbering mediaeval embers and shadowy opinions, but really 
aiming at political self-aggrandizement, the creation of an aris- 
tocratic group, an American nobility in state and government. 
Should any such a challenge ever come to you, American Jews, 
be not dismayed, you, too, will answer: "No surrender! Give 
me liberty or give me death !" You dearly love your new country, 
your citizenship, your offices, your cosy homes, but you prize and 
love your freedom of conscience, your old and venerable origin, 
your patriarchal descent, your hoary reminiscences, the long and 
honorable scars of your three thousand years' history. You will 
allow no one to pluck from the American escutcheon its grandest 
features. A free conscience, separation of state and church, a 
state for all races, origins and creeds is the grandest gem m the 
noble American diadem. Your motto too will be as of yore : ''What 
ever God has spoken we will do." 

Here an idea strikes me, a grand vista : It was in anno 1492 
when Columbus set sail for the discovery of America (with Jewish 
money, not that of Queen Isabella, as often claimed). On board 
he had many Spanish adventurers of Marrano- Jewish descent, 
and the very first European setting his foot on the West Indian 
islands was such a Marrano-Jew, his interpreter,sent down by the 
illustrious leader to see, speak and examine the native islanders. 
Now, consider : In the same year, 1492, half a million of He- 



AMERICA AND NEW JUDAEA. 255 

brews were forcibly baptized in the Spanish peninsula. We can- 
not exactly compute how many were destroyed. At least three 
hundred thousand were brutally thrown out of their homes, driven 
into exile and forcibly embarked into ships for Africa, Turkey, 
Egypt, Palestine, most of whom treacherously perished on the 
voyage. Now the idea strikes me, if instead of that, they had 
emigrated to America, what a grand vista opens before our eyes ! 
The Hebraic Plymouth fathers would have come to America 
centuries earlier and would have founded a greater, freer New- 
Judaea on the continent discovered by Columbus. 

But even now it is not too late, four centuries are lost, still not 
all is lost. As yet the American Northwest is free, vast and fer- 
tile enough for a population ten times larger than the entire 
Hebraic nationality. To mature a plan of immigration, coloniza- 
tion, agriculture, commerce and industries for an American New- 
Judaea would be wise and perfectly feasible, desirable in the ex- 
treme; for American natives and new immigrants, for Christian 
and Jew ; for Jewish settlers from the East and South of Europe 
who are ostracised and without a fatherland. It would be desirable 
for the American Northwest, as yet depleted of inhabitants and 
little productive from lack of brains and hands. It would meet 
the wishes of those Eastern and Southern Europeans who suffer 
from over-population or bad government and yearn for an outlet 
for their surplus fellowmen. Such a practical scheme of Jewish 
immigration to the American Northwest, we say, would be wise 
and practical, patriotic, American, politic and humane. Salutary 
for the Jews and patriotic for the United States and its vast, waste 
areas. In place of seeking a country for the Jew in out of the 
way regions, teeming with harrowing uncertainties, palpable im- 
possibilities and insurmountable difficulties ; or, instead of scatter- 
ing and breaking, shrinking and impeding the stream of Jewish 
emigration, one should rather lead and direct it into its right 
channels, places and modes. And this expressly with the out- 
spoken design and intent of creating a New-Judaea under the 
protecting wings of the American eagle ; a New-Judaean State as 
one of the States of this United States of North- America ; a New- 
Judaea as Idaho, Nebraska or Illinois ; there to locate the Lion 
of Judah side by side with the star-spangled banner of this vast 
democracy. Here is a fruitful idea, advantageous to the Ameri- 
can continent, acquiring for it the nation of thinkers, of mind, 



256 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

of the Bible, and the Decalogue, the masters of learning and of 
industry; advantageous to the million of Jews already here and 
to the millions of ostracized Hebrews seeking a home, that they 
may find it here on these hospitable shores. For all parties con- 
cerned such an idea would be wise and practically advantageous. 
But it must be more than a mere scheme. The idea must 
ripen to a concrete being, with a body, bones, muscles and ar- 
teries. Such a scheme I have submitted in 1864 to the Alliance 
Isr.Universelle of Paris, in a pamphlet handed to Mr. Narcisse 
Levin, then secretary of that society, whilst the late Adolphe Cre- 
mieux was its venerated president. But the scheme never became 
flesh and bone, it never matured to action. My French pamphlet 
was since lost by the "Archives Israelites" of Paris. Pity for 
these forty-five years. The idea never was acted upon. Territory 
should have been acquired of the United States government, 
which then wbuld have been cheerfully granted ; just on the same 
terms as to other newcomers. No extra charter was necessary, no 
special stipulations, no autonomy guarantees ; simply ground, coun- 
try, citizenship acquired for settlers,, colonists, immigrants ; then 
farms at a small outlay erected and Jewish exiles settled therein ; a 
log-cabin, with an enclosure, a plough, some utensils, cow and sheep 
bestowed on them, on easy terms ; thus Jewish colonization estab- 
lished, and, in part, non- Jewish, too. In a generation or less, such 
Hebraic settlers being in the majority, would form a state, a Ju- 
daean federal state within the one body of the United States people. 
The territory of a Jewish majority would, ipse se, form a state with 
a Jewish majority, a New Judaea, still an integral part of the un- 
denominational United States of North America. No political 
intrigues necessary, no religious jealousies aroused, no extra- 
charters needed ; still a New-Judaea created as natural as Mary- 
land, New Haven or Rhode Island. This would settle the Jew- 
ish problem. Establishing such a New Judaean state as an inte- 
gral part of the unsectarian United States of North America, 
would best and easily settle this vexed Jewish question in Europe 
and in the world. Hundreds of thousands and millions of Jews 
would stay there where they are now, in Europe, Asia, etc. But 
the Jewish nationality would have a home, a country, a flag, a spot 
where it has the majority, with, most logically, its governor, rep- 
resentative power, militia, a voice in Congress. And the or- 
phanage, the exile of the patriarchal people would be at an end. 
North America would gain a new star and Europe make good 
the wrong of a thousand years. 



257 



CLOSING REMARKS. 

We have held a succinct review of Israel's history, from Moses 
and the Sinaic epoch to Washington, Roosevelt, Taft. For thirty- 
five centuries this is going on, one battle ground with one identical 
war-shout : Israel champions the Decalogue and never surren- 
ders ! Now mark ! In spite of unparalleled, harrowing persecu- 
tions, he did not die and did not surrender ! Why so ? He did 
not die, just because he surrendered not! Had he yielded he 
would have perished ! Whosover gives up his place allotted by 
Providence, whosoever shirks his duty, loses his right to exist. 
Who fails in his historical mission, is soon supplanted by another 
more fit for the task. While he who is right, has the courage of, 
and insists on his right, he who performs the duty corresponding 
to the right, he will succeed. This is the universal moral law, as 
sure as the physical law of gravitation. 

Several serious writers have recently turned their attention to 
this "Jewish question" and published their remarkable replies. 
Their conclusions are identical : The Jewish people may count 
among the strongest races extant, physically, mentally, indus- 
trially. They have been proved and steeled in the crucible of a 
long continued, arduous battle for existence. They are the out- 
come of natural selection, the survival of the fittest, after a strug- 
gle of three and one-half millennia. All their weaklings have 
dropped on the long, rough road. Only the strongest and 
ablest have remained. And this remnant is tenacious, holding its 
own, patient and persevering; endowed with self-reliance, moral 
courage, self-sacrifice and will-power, resourceful in shift and drift 
and practical shrewdness, ready thought and fancy, enduring and 
willing of work, full of iniative ; in the industries, arts, sciences, lit- 
erature, statesmanship, eloquence, ideality, tempered with pru- 
dence, realism and sobriety; moreover, they are endowed with 
special, racial virtues, of their own acquisition, and with partic- 
ular racial defects and vices, entailed, yea, forced upon them by 
the stress of long adversity, having lived for two thousands years 
as a minority, for four thousand in voluntary isolation, at last in 
malevolent ostracism. Contemplating this many-sided, compli- 
cated historical problem, we conclude that the Hebraic virtues are 
to stay and become the patrimony of mankind ; whilst their vices, 



258 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

entailed by the surroundings, borrowed from, or forced upon 
them by their enemies, contracted by contagion — these vices they 
will throw off with the improved social and economical circum- 
stances. Tempered and hardened by long adversity, millennial, 
cruel and malicious persecution, sharpened by experience and 
trials, upheld by stern principles, a noble religious doctrine, tem- 
perate habits, in diet, matrimony and mental training, inured to 
diligence, saving and prudence, Israel is one of the superior races, 
undoubtedly he is bound to succeed ; and anti-Semitism must and 
will fail, the struggle is hard, but the issue, safe. 

But we must not omit the shades in the picture. Their worst draw- 
back is a misunderstanding of the universal laws. Everything is 
governed by cause and effect, not miracles. Follow up Israel's his- 
tory and you will find they often attributed, in critical moments, 
supernatural, wrong causes to national events. They constructed 
the world's government on whimsical grounds, contrived by their 
own fancy, by their misled and misleading leaders. They ever ex- 
pected the Deity, arbitrarily and condescendingly, to interfere on 
their behalf in this world's logical transactions, instead of studying 
nature's immutable, wise and inexorable laws, no doubt the best 
possible, emanating from the Supreme Source of Wisdom and 
fitness. Instead of studying and coming up to these eternal, di- 
vine laws, Israel came before the Deity with his bold pretences 
and prescribed to Omnipotence what to do or to omit, praying 
that for his sake Providence should change these rules, or, at least, 
a while suspend them, for his convenience, and offering for that 
a puerile consideration ! And this mode of thinking and con- 
structing the universe and its law-abiding government is by no 
means Mosaic, nor rational, nor justified by daily experience. It 
is a remnant of paganism. The gods were in man's image and so 
their ruling. Prayer and victims influenced them and bent their 
will. The Mosaic Providence is law personified. Closely looking, 
there is law, wisdom, necessary causes and effects, causes bearing 
the effects in their lap. Israel in many of his historcial crises in- 
vented puerile reasons for eternal, stern facts, and prayed the 
Deity to make 2 plus 2 equal to 5. Hence disappointment ! Instead 
of living up to law, he desired laws expressly made for his whims. 
Among all nations short-sighted or crafty priests pretended to be 
able to bend the divine will, the laws of nature, and the blind 
masses willingly believed it. So Judge Jeptha offered his daugh- 



CLOSING REMARKS. 259 

ter for a victory ; King Mesha, his son ; the priest Kalchas pre- 
vailed on Agamemnon to sacrifice Iphygenia. When Nebuchad- 
Nezzar besieged Jerusalem, priests and courtiers persuaded im- 
potent Zedekia to resist : God will interfere by a miracle in his 
favor, will make two plus two equal to five. Honest Jeremiah said : 
"No ! Submit and bear the yoke until better times will come. Pray 
for the peace and prosperity of Babylon, for your prosperity de- 
pends on Babylon's !" The Greeks were indignant at the Mace- 
donian yoke, but Phocion advised submission, for he was a friend, 
not a flatterer of his people. In a great crises the Romans were 
chauvinistic, and expected the interference of the Deity, but hon- 
est Cato advised not simply prayers and sacrifices for miraculous 
divine help, but bravery, self-sacrifice. God ever helps a good 
cause, but he helps through the honest efforts of the party fight- 
ing for redress. Cowards must submit. ^ Judas Maccabeus and 
his pious and brave kinsmen reckoned upon divine assistance, but 
to come through their own brave arms and prudence.^ God surely 
helps a good cause, on condition that men fight for that good 
cause. The Jewish people expect miracles and remain passive. 
Here is the trouble, here the mistake and its results ! 

Other kindred features are superstition, racial vanity, dreams 
of self-importance, Groessen-Wahn, over-bearing in his very rags, 
sneering at the fortress and the palace from the Ghetto-garret- 
window, holding to forms belonging to the past and deeming of 
sacred importance what is but an old-time drapery. Such frailties 
render Jews unamiable, anti-social, vainglorious, puerile and ob- 
stinate; to the unthinking even ridiculous and hateful. It is not 
their rational doctrines and their pure morality, the essence of 
Judaism, which harms them, but the antiquated forms and anti- 
social manners of the mediaeval Ghetto- Jew which rendered him 
odious to the masses. 

Still, closely, psychologically considered, are not all their faults, 
defects, vices even, of a heroic origin and character?. . .At any 
rate, these many weak points and idle peculiarities, they have 
contracted in the long diaspora; and they are fast ridding them- 
selves of such, as fast as they find a home with rights, as soon as 



iCato the Elder, in a great Roman crisis. See Titi Livii, H-stor. 
Libri. 

2A daily experience recognized by Mathatias and his sons, but not 
by their later successors of the Judaco-Roman war; as little as by the 
Zionists of to-day. 



26o EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

their social and economical circumstances improve. The alluded- 
to vices and defects were entailed upon them by their Pharaohs, 
Hamans, Ignatieffs, whilst the old-time obstinacy, race vanity, 
stickling, etc., were their strong tortoise-shell against the arms, 
stones and darts of two thousand years' cruel persecutions. The ex- 
uberant rites, observances and ceremonies, the notions of supe- 
riority and over-sanctimoniousness were their thick furs and 
warm waddings during the long, chilly, social winters. They set 
up superstition against worse superstition, racial pride against 
overbearing racial hate; contempt against derision, belittling, pil- 
lage and exile, the only arms of the meek and weak against the 
harsh and strong, of the victim against the oppressor. 

In this long and arduous battle of the Decalogue and its polity 
of purity, justice and reason, against the polytheistic world and 
its polity of brute force and coarse sensuality, I count even more 
upon moral factors, than upon ethnical and physiological ones. 
The Jew will come out as victor over anti-Semitism, because man- 
kind is silently and instinctively his active ally in that war ; because 
mankind's interests incline thereat, yea, peremptorily demand it; 
because monotheism and the Ten Words are mankind's Organic 
Law, are the safest foundation for the rights and duties of in- 
telligent beings. The Jew fights for mankind's rights and true 
interests, and mankind is bound at last to find that out and come 
to his assistance. The Decalogue is the only possible platform 
for democracy, universal peace, freedom and justice. The He- 
braic prophets were the first tribunes of the people. They first 
advocated the people's social position ; its interests, human dig- 
nity and possible developments, against prince, noble and soldier. 
At all times lordly egoism relying upon the ignorance of the 
masses, combined against the people and its champions, the Jews. 

Montesquieu (Grandeur et decadence des Romains, Chap. XV) 
correctly remarks : "The common people of Rome hated not, 
even, the worst emperors. Since they had lost their once political 
importance and were no longer occupied with war-making, that 
plebs became the vilest of all people. It considered commerce 
and arts as things becoming slaves, and the distributions of bread- 
stuffs made it neglect even agriculture." Even so nobles and 
mob combined against Jews during the long, dark Middle Ages, 
not appreciating his labors. Now the nations need but more edu- 
cation to realize the grave import of the Hebraic platform, iden- 



CLOSING REMARKS. 261 

tical with the old prophetical one. With a better understanding 
of the Great-Charter formulated by the "peculiar people," the 
nations will recognize, adopt and make it theirs. In one word, 
the victory of Israel is the triumph of the people, of democracy 
and the masses against privilege ; therefore anti-Semitism will 
yield. The Decalogue is the great charter, mankind's Bill of 
Rights of universal peace, of education, of bodily, mental and 
economic betterment. So the late French statesman and writer, 
St. Hillaire, expressed it tersely: "Anti-Semitism is a folly. 
Should the Jews succumb and yield, that would be the greatest 
misfortune that ever befell mankind." 

Contemplating the lurid horizon of the present, yea of the last 
half-century of the world's history, the philanthropist staggers in 
his hopefulness and is nigh despairing of human betterment. 
Such a well-balanced thinker as Professor A. H. Sayce, of Oxford 
and Cairo, after a long and glorious career of scientific labors, 
experiences and travel, recently replied to my remark : Whether 
our men of science should not join their efforts to those advo- 
cating the problem of the Hague arbitration commission : "I am 
afraid, men will fight as long as human history will last." Still 
let us not give up the cheering hope that gradually common 
sense, universal education, the salient interests of all, plain jus- 
tice and calm wisdom will finally succeed and eliminate inter- 
national war, racial prejudice and religious fanaticism, 

THE UNITED STATES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

I said : Israel's doctrine, monotheism and the Ten Words are 
mankind's platform. It upholds democracy, peace, universal edu- 
cation, work and bread for all. It postulates and guarantees the 
same burdens and emoluments to each and all, "life, liberty and 
the pursuit of happiness" in the reach of all. Its creed embodies 
the universal fatherhood of God and men's universal brother- 
hood, the harmonious co-working of individuals and nations, the 
unity of the human race, their bodily and spiritual affinity and 
their identical interests. And this platform substantiates the 
same rights and duties for all intelligent beings : No discrimina- 
tion against sex, creed, or country; no domineering classes and 
subject masses; no noble-born and pariahs; but all free and equal, 



262 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

all learning, thinking, toiling and enjoying the fruit of their labors. 
Hence no polygamy and no pariah-races ; no disfranchisement of 
the public vote, the government for and by the people and every 
right corresponding to a duty. Hence a free state, a free Church, 
a free conscience, a free farm to each family, free speech and free 
press. Hence education, chances, bread, and unchequered devel- 
opment for all. This is Israel's program ; this is implied in the 
economical and social phases of monotheism and the Decalogue ; 
this is their logical and necessary sequence and outcome, saliently 
held forth again and again, on every page of the Pentateuch and 
the Prophets. 

Nor does the Talmud and Moralists militate against this. The 
rabbis multiplied the observances and ceremonials, simply as 
means and handles, or as so many arms of defence against the 
then prevailing, fierce antagonism. Such accumulation of sym- 
bols and religious practices were the coat of mail against tlie 
darts bristling around the Hebrew; to screen him against subju- 
gation and absorption. Isolated and lonely in that desert, his 
inimical surroundings, he was to be protected by this tortoise- 
shell. And with him was to be preserved his saving doctrine. 
By these multiplied rites the Talmud preserved both the body 
and the soul, the Jew and the Decalogue ; both indispensably nec- 
essary for mankind's bodily, ethical, social and economical gradual 
reconstruction. 

Mark it well : That broad liberalism of the Pentateuch is fully 
reflected and embodied in the lofty moral and social teachings of 
the rabbis, whenever they were not dimmed and marred by cruel 
provocations. These, naturally, induced counter-measures, rigor- 
ism, new precautions and hedges in their distress, harsh, tempo- 
rary enactments, in dire self-defense {horaath Shaah). 

And that platform of monotheism and the Decalogue is the 
aspiration of present-day democracy. True democracy and pro- 
phetism are identical. Both are champions of the Ten Words, 
with their expoundings in Leviticus XIX and the entire five 
Books of Moses. Both embody the Mosaic man and state con- 
cept, the Biblical right and justice scheme, with their civil, politi- 
cal, agrarian and economical institutions. All these point to- 
wards one Supreme Rule, one human race, one right and one 
duty to be realized in the future society. 



THE UNITED STATES AND THE DECALOGUE. 263 

Even this is the ideal sketched by Isaiah II. and Micha IV: It 
shall come to pass in the far-off future when the Mount of Ihvh 
will tower high above all the mounts and all the nations will 
hasten thereto, saying let us go there and learn of His ways . . . for 
God will arbitrate between nations . . . and they will change their 
swords into pruning hooks and no longer wage war against each 
other . . . Even the non-Jews associating themselves with the Divine 
Name, will be admitted to this holy mount and their prayers be 
accepted, for My house shall be the house of prayer for all the 
nations.". . .Here is the programme of the new democracy, so- 
ciety, humanity, the United States of the world. This is the 
Mosaic doctrine and its political ideal. It is, essentially, the back- 
bone of Christianity, its ''kingdom of heaven on earth." It is 
the aim and object of all true religion. Modern democracy is 
the essence and the goal of the commonwealths of this xA^merican 
continent. Is is the child of the Biblical man and State theory. 
What the seers of Judaea have dreamed and schemed, what they 
have aspired at and labored, lived and died for, that mankind is 
pledged to realize and embody. The United States' social scheme 
is the first to clothe with flesh and bone the visions of the Judaean 
tribunes, since IMoses and Samuel to Moses Mendelssohn and 
Lasalle. The Washingtons, Franklins, Lincolns, Garfields, Cleve- 
lands are the echoes, the connecting links between us and the 
aspirations of Sinai, Karmel, Moriah. The United States is bound 
to take its stand upon holy ground. Our star-spangled banner, 
waving over eighty millions of free and equal citizens, is inscribed 
with the Ten Words, mankind's Great Charter from Sinai. It is 
proclaiming to the world, One Ruler, one mankmd, one Right 
and one Duty for all. Right shall, alone and finally, be might. 
From Moses to Washington, from Horeb to the Rocky Moun- 
tains, fromi Monotheism to Democracy, there is going on but one 
continuous elaboration of one string of principles. And these 
principles must and finally will be victorious, right alone must be 
might and no surrender! 



264 

IX Study.— "Tn^ MOSAIC SANCTUARY. 

"Let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them.'* 
(Exod. 25, 8.) 

Re:trospect. 

In the preceding studies and chapters we have considered the 
people of Israel, leaving Egypt and acquiring their personal free- 
dom and national independence ; then leaving ignorance and its 
accompanying idolatry — since, at all times, the ignorant were 
sinful and idol-worshippers^ — they became the recipients, in the 
grand Arabian ntmosphere of Sinai, of the Ten Commandments, 
the solid basis and foundation of their everlasting-spiritual nation- 
ality. Elsewhere (in Spirit of the Biblical Legislation) we have 
considered the Mosaic Laws, the necessary and logical develop- 
ments and the complement of the principles of the Decalogue, 
elaborated in II. M 22 and 23, into a civil, political and social 
Code, for the •>'overnment of the primitive Hebraic Common- 
wealth. We have seen that a close comparison between that leg- 
islation and the most renowned ones among other nations, shows 
the decided superiority of the first over the latter ones ; that the 
freedom of the individual man, the position of the woman, the 
human dignity, the strict equality of the different members of the 
community and the independence of the nation, were firmly 
secured and grounded, standing on and moored in the immovable 
rock of the equal distribution of the national wealth, man's civil 
and political equality ever going hand in hand with his economic 
one^ and indispensably necessary. We have seen, moreover, that 
this paramount foundation of equality, spiritual, civil, political 
and economic, was at the very start guaranteed by the Mosaic 
Code, there more emphasized and accentuated than by any other 
ancient one. 

And equally superior are the Mosaic Benevolence and Charity 
laws with their humanitarian institutions, treated in another vol- 
ume.2 Our sympathetic duties towards the poor, the stranger, 



NDn XT "in pNi T'Dn pxn oy ^h ^ 



2In Greece and Rome this parallel was neglected, hence the eternal 
friction and final collapse of the republic. 
SHumanity and Benevolence in Pentateuch 



THE MOSAIC SANCTUARY. 265 

the debtor, the criminal, especially towards the Levites, the 
widows and orphans, even our feelings of solidarity and benevo- 
lent pity towards our suffering fellow-creatures, with all their 
enactments, are undoubtedly superior to analogous provisions of 
any of the ancient and even of the modern religious and political 
systems. 

Nowhere in other legislative Codes do we find so emphatically 
and unflinchingly stated : that the land belongs to none, finally, 
but alone to God ; that He has lent it to the citizens, to all the citi- 
zens alike, to be distributed, squarely, by equal shares, and by lot, 
among the adult communal males, for the maintenance of their 
respective families, never to be alienated, ever to remain as the 
patrimonial heirloom, from father to son and their posterity so 
as to insure their future well being, and possibly altogether to 
avoid pauperism and plutocracy, enslavement and lordism, buying 
and selling of power and dominion, the great social and moral 
stumbling blocks of all times and all countries, which, to this day, 
are the Scylla and Charybdis, the threatening Damocles' sword 
overhanging civilized society, termed the social problem, and 
more than any thing else, engrossing the attention of wise states- 
men, economists, philanthropists. ^ 

All this proves conclusively, that Mosaism, though undoubtedly 
originating in a tribe, a nationality, a sect, and specially enacted 
for a certain race and country, nevertheless is fully capable, in its 
leading features, its dominant principles, of becoming a universal 
polity, a platform for civilized mankind at large. Considered 
from the highest standpoint, we see that the spirit of the uni- 
versal religion, the Spirit of God,^ really and literally, has dictated 
that Mosaic Code. For all human laws emanate from and are 
dependent upon time country and environments ; whilst laws that 
are eternal and universal, fit for all circumstances, can surely 
claim as their source, the highest authority. Divine Wisdom itself. 

THE SANCTUARY, TABERNACLE, FORM, OUTFIT. 

In our Scriptural chapter now contemplated, a new set of 
laws is elaborately displayed to our gaze and our meditation. The 
great theme here before us, is : ''They shall make unto Me a sanc- 
tuary that I may dwell in their midst." (II M. 25, 7.) After 



iSee Biblical Legislation, III, 80. 



266 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

Israel had conquered his freedom, acquired his nucleus of civil 
and moral laws and, spiritualized by the Sinaic revelation, had 
risen to a high ethical level, an opportunity was offered to him 
for keeping up a constant communion with the Divine, a Sanc- 
tuary for the Shcchina became thus necessary, a place where the 
Israelite could ever and always find the Deity in his reach, a 
tabernacle where the Divine could ever meet the human and 
sanctify it. Hence our theme, "Ye shall construct for Me a sanc- 
tuary that I may reside among you." 

Kind Reader ! This present chapter is necessarily suggested in 
this place, by our survey of the book of Exodus, of which it 
is an important part, occupying chapters 25-40. The many 
practical, realistic, historical problems of the preceding pages 
will rarely occur here. It is a theoretical study of the highest 
import, embracing man's moral and intellectual phases, and 
dealing with the divine in our bosom. For the thoughtful it will 
form a welcome contrast, a change of theme and, for that very 
reason, a suitable climax to the various subjects treated in this 
volume. Our present theme is : ''Ye shall erect a Sanctuary 
that God may dwell among you." 

DO MEN NEED ONE? 

Do we need a sanctuary to meet God ? We answer : True, the 
Godhead tolerates no limitation, He is everywhere ; His residence 
can not be localized. No doubt, there are great moments in the 
career of man, of transcendent individuals and of nations, there 
are indeed great and extraordinary opportunities, when puny, 
dust-born man rises to the Diety, at one single bound ; when he 
overleaps in one salto mortale the immeasurable gap between 
earth and heaven, matter and spirit, the human and the divine; 
when our finite being widens and grows and merges with this 
vast world around us ; when we, poor mortals, take up the 
Infinite into our narrow bosom ; when we, atom of dust, become 
identified with the universe. Such an important moment is when, 
after long laboring under deadly disease, the reconvalescent feels 
again life and health buoyantly welling in his bosom. Such a 
moment is when, after an oppressive consciousness of the dreari- 
ness of human existence, we for once listen to the heavenly voice 
of true, genuine and unselfish sympathy. Such a moment is 
when suddenly a revelation dawns upon us that we live, bear, and 



DO MEN NEED ONE? 267 

labor for a great, immortal cause. Such is when, standing at the 
death-bed of a dear parent bidding us an eternal good-bye ! Such 
is when listening distmctly from the rosy lips of our dear, sweet 
baby stammering out : Papa ! JMamma ! Such a shattering and 
elevating moment we witness when, from the height of human 
prosperity, we tumble down into the depth of misfortune — yet 
hear our strong, manly conscience whispering : Courage ! Quiet ! 
All is lost ; but honor remains, thy human dignity is safe !^ Such 
is when after long and drear}^ years of intense struggle with 
opponents, we at last stand triumphant — without loss of self- 
respect, and the rare lesson as clear outcome : Honesty is the 
best policy ! Rising now to higher historical planes, such a 
moment is at hand, when a nation, bleeding, in the deathly throes 
of tyranny, conquers in a desperate effort her inalienable rights, 
her freedom. Such a moment dawns upon the horizon when 
humanity, feeling the urgency of mental and moral regeneration, 
after a long and bitter struggle, conquers a higher religious or 
social polity. Such a great moment was that of Israel at his lib- 
eration from Pharaoh. Such was that when the Roman world 
embracing the chaste Moriah doctrine ejected the sensuality of 
Olympus. Or that of the Germans upon the call of Luther, Zwingli, 
Calvin ; or when our thirteen colonies arose at the call of Frank- 
lin and his friends ; or when Europe felt thrilled at the sound of 
the Marseillaise. At such great epochs, in such supreme crises, 
such historical upheavals, of intense efforts, rare and unique turn- 
points in the life of great individuals and of historical nations, 
then man at once rises to God. Then we witness a great revela- 
tion in our soul, our own Sinai. Then wt need no Sanctuary oi 
stone. Then heaven's great dome is our most suitable Temple ; 
then Deity is revealed to our minds in her brightest majesty. God 
is then in direct communion with man. At such upheavals human 
nature is taken out of its hinges, our terrestrial self becomes di- 
vine. We need no longer any crutches to raise us to heaven. We 
need no man-made sanctuary, no ceremonies, rites or symbols. Mat- 
ter drops at our feet. We are in the immediate presence of the 
Shechina. 

But such moments, alas, are rare and short. As the quick flash 
and blast of the lightning, they toss us out of our accustomed 



i"Tout est perdu sauf I'honneur." (At battle of Pavia.) 



268 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

sphere. But soon the relapse comes, a terrible fall, as the story 
of the Gigantes, from heaven to earth. Then we again become 
aware of our finiteness. We feel again miserably dragged down 
to our level on earth. We are then the more exhausted, the 
greater the effort had been. Our wings are the more plucked 
and curtailed, the loftier our previous flights. We recognize that 
we are earthly mortals, that we cannot spare the human crutches, 
that traditional religious ladder to attain at the spiritual and 
reach the divine. We learn that we need a special place, a 
shrine, hymn, ritual for communion and worship. We need a 
temple, emblems, holidays, set-prayers, rites, observances, sym- 
bols. And this is the sense and scope of our theme : ''Ye shall 
make Me a sanctuary that I rest in your midst." 

No doubt. Heaven's high arch is the fittest dome for worship- 
ping the Master of the Universe; the starry constellations above 
are the grandest choir; the sun rising and setting, is the sub- 
limest hymn. The prospect from Mount Sinai, or even Mount 
Blanc, or the Rocky Mountains, or the Niagara falls, upon limitless 
space, inspires us with the grandest concepts and feelings of ado- 
ration for the mysterious Builder of all existence. But consider- 
ing calmly, with our eyes open, and with our hands on our heart : 
How often has heaven's majestic dome inspired us with devotion? 
The daily wonders of nature tune and fill the beholder with awe 
and admiration. But he mostly lacks the disposition of mind to 
realize their spiritual incentives. It is only when secluded from the 
deafening turmoil of the world, with its strivings, passions and 
warfares. It is only when in the Temple, crowded with worship- 
pers, blazing with symbols, ringing with prayers and hymns, that 
we become aware of our Divine Master. There, the lofty, stern 
walls, the venerable Shrine, the solemn choir and hymns, the Ark 
with the Law-scrolls, the numerous worshippers, these direct to 
and concentrate our attention upon spiritual things. The peals 
of the organ and the still murmur of the devout, awaken us to the 
absolute fact that there is within the deep recesses of our soul a 
half-veiled mystic world connecting us with the great World- 
Mystery. Organ, hymn and cult loudly re-echo and reverberate 
in our well-tuned mind. The solemn sentences of confession, 
prayer, scripture, impress us ; all that, participated in by so many 
coreligionists, friends and relatives, illustrates to us the solemn 
inscriptions in sacred characters, looking down upon us from 



DO MEN NEED ONE? 269 

the sacred Temple walls: ''Know before whom thou standest ! 
Know thou art in presence of the King of Kings, the Only One ! 
They shall erect for Me a sanctuary that I may dwell among 
them." 

Even so, with ancient Israel and our subject-matter, after the 
trying effort of the Exodus, the passing of the Red Sea,^ the over- 
throw of the Egyptian pursuers, the promulgation of the Sinaic 
Organic Law, after so many extraordinary occasions where they 
had seen Providence "eye to eye,'' in fulfillment of the traditional 
covenant with the Patriarchs — they now returned to the common 
level of human existence. And now they found out that they 
needed the earthly means of communion with the divine. Hence 
the behest : "They shall make Me a sanctuary that I dwell among 
them." Therefore, the human helps for securing divine contact. 
God is omnipresent, "full of His glory is the universe," but for 
distracted, dissipated, passion-bound man he is in the house of 
prayer. Therefore the importance of securing a place for wor- 
ship, for perpetual revelations, a permanent Sinai. Therefore the 
Mishkan, Tabernacle, not a Sinai which was irremovable and 
fixed in far-ofif Arabia, but a Temple that would wander with 
them about in the desert, follow them to Palestine, later 
accompany them from age to age, from country to country, 
through all their vicissitudes, to all the habitable regions of the 
globe, Babylon, Africa, Europe and America. Such a Tabernacle 
became necessary and that is our theme, its import and occasion. 

Our Agadists were fond of, yea enthusiastic over this theme and 
brought out many tender and exquisite parables on this occasion, 
ingeniously and poetically illustrating the idea that civilized Laws 
and institutions are ever the outcome of Supreme Wisdom, that 
the Thora is identical with Divine Intelligence, God's first-born 
child."2 'T have presented you with the Law, God said. So 
my divine Self goes with it." Once upon a time a king had an 
only daughter, whom he loved above every thing. When she 
blossomed up into graceful maidenhood, he promised her hand 
to a noble prince who had wooed for her. When the day of mar- 
riage approached and the prince came to take her to her new 



iSo-called; biblical Yam-Suph, the Bullrush-sea, perhaps the Lake 
Sirbonis, according to Bruggsh-Bey. 

^^jd:? ^t^D... nm ^mso: ^n^nD .minn nx D3^ ^m^o r]'2"p"r] -idx « 



270 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

home, the royal father said : Give her away to you I cannot, for 
my heart yearns for her ; refuse her to you, I can not, either, she 
is your lawful wife. What then is to be done? Well, let me 
make you this proposition, it is the best compromise, and I hope 
you will accept it, viz : Wherever you go with her, there prepare 
for me a room in your palace and then she will be with you and 
still with me, too. — Even so, after the Deity had vouchsafed to 
man the Thora, he said: "Prepare for Me a sanctuary that I 
abide with you near her." 

And this fine parable is ethically true, later often repeated by 
many moral and political thinkers. Indeed, order, harmony, law, 
justice, peace are among the great attributes of the Godhead. Rea- 
son, truth, equity, sympathy, eternal fitness and benevolence 
emanate from Him. Hence, wherever the Law abides, also rea- 
son, truth, goodness dwell — there God resides, without fail, God 
the embodiment of everything good and great and true. 

Our Sages make here another pointed remark : Previous to 
Israel's receiving the Thora in the Sinaic atmosphere, we read 
repeatedly and variously (II M. 24), **Moses went up to God," 
after its deliverance, the divine behest is : "Make Me a sanctuary 
that I may dwell among you," viz : At first man rises to the 
divine Mind, next God descends to the Temple made by man. 
At all the great historical epochs which mark the advance of cul- 
ture, when one chapter closes and another opens in the annals 
of mankind, when a new, higher phase of human civilization 
makes its appearance, then the tremendous abyss of social anar- 
chy rocks and travails, bringing forth in its throes a new order of 
things, the newly discovered continents for striving humanity. 
Great teachers, initiators, extraordinary geniuses arise from 
among the people, with new ideas, impulses and methods ; they 
rise to the Deity, the source of all Law and civilization. Thence 
they bring down the germ of new endeavors into our human 
sphere : They receive the Thora on the divine Mount^ and hand 
it down as the much-needed panacea for man's troubles, as the 
soothing oil for the sea of human passion. At once peace, order 
and justice are established; God again resides among men, society 
is satisfied and feels to rest on the firm basis of reason, sympathy 
and fitness. 



1 min no on the DTl^Xn "in All the great lawgivers had their 

sacred mounts. Politicians and magicians work in caves. Initiators 
and prophets have their divine mounts. 



271 



THE IMPORT OF TABERNACLE AND TEMPLE. 

The second Book of Moses principally treats of three subjects: 
The Exodus from Egpyt, the Ten Words with the gradually de- 
veloped Mosaic legislation, and the creation of the national Tem- 
ple, a Tabernacle, a portable sanctuary where the Benai-Israel 
were to meet with God, worship Him and receive continued inspi- 
ration, guidance and behests. The Tabernacle and its minute 
description occupies nearly thirteen chapters of H. Moses, giving 
all the details about its site, construction, dimensions, materials, 
shape, outfit, vessels, offerings, cult, priesthood, vestments, altars, 
compartments, functions in their special details and particularities. 
Later on, we shall see wherefore was all that circumstantiality. 
Here we premise only that in the sacred books of India, Baby- 
lonia, Assyria, Egypt, we find no less attention paid to the great 
national sanctuaries there. In fact, the recently discovered liter- 
atures of the Old World, show that in prehistoric times, the state 
clustered around the church, the church being the center and 
nucleus of the State, and the priesthood, the marrow and nucleus 
of the people. Theocracy was the form of government. The 
Temple was the heart, the corner-stone, the soul of the nation. 
Hence its paramount importance. Not soldiers and kings, not 
Nimrods, but Gudea, Malki-Zedek, Abraham, Moses, men of 
brain and religion, not of war and conquest, established cropires 
and peoples. Let us now have a closer survey of the import of 
Israers first national Temple here described. 

Many have asked : Why should the erection of a house of wor- 
ship find so much space and attention in the history and the Code 
of Mosaism? Why are therein given such minute descriptions of 
the numerous and various vessels, materials, arrangements and 
forms of that edifice? We have alluded to similar descriptions 
elsewhere. Looking into the voluminous expoundings of our own 
pious commentators, we find there many whimsical and curious 
answers to our query, all of a mysterious nature, hinting that 
the Tabernacle, Tent of Appointment, Sacred Meeting place, was 
of paramount importance, not only then, for the Benai-Israel 
tribes, but for the universe entirely. They claim that there is a 
prototype sanctuary in heaven, the residence of the Schechina, 
the divine Majesty, and that the Tabernacle of Mosis was its sacred 



272 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

copy, its double; as kings have many palaces, so God has many, 
one residence on high and another here below on earth, just in 
the center of the world.^ 

But we are not here to discuss mysticism, or the residence of 
the God of Israel, whom Solomon already had described as not 
to be encompassed by all the heavens, as boundless in space and 
time, omnipresent and eternal.^ God resides nowhere and never 
rests. He is the ever active creator, thinking Principle of the 
universe. Should He stop ^ and rest for one moment, all would 
collapse into chaos or annihilation. As the heart is ever moving, 
throbbing, propelling; as the blood is constantly circulating in 
the body, to and fro ; as from the beginning to the end of life, the 
pulse remains ever astir, active, and when it stops its functions, 
at once life too stops and is extinct — even similar is the Deity, the 
heart and Soul of all existence, the Life of the universe.^ Intelli- 
gence, Energy, Activity, Impulse and Source of all. He never 
rests. He resides everywhere and needs no special residence in 
space or time.^ 

Even such is the Ineffable Being described in our text (II. M. 
24, 15) : "Moses went up to the mount, enveloped in clouds and 
thereon rested the Majesty of Ihvh" — not He Himself rested — 
"and the vision of His glory was as a consuming fire on the 
mountain top." Thus the majesty of Israel's Ineffable One was 
reflected on Sinai and from there the prophet caught up a glimpse 
of the divine. Look here, how anthropomorphism is carefully 
discarded. The lawgiver is anxious to have you cling to the 
God-idea, but not under any mythologic form as current in his 
time: God is the Supreme Mind, the ever active Intelligence cre- 
ating and superintending nature, all existence. 

What now is the bearing, the actual sense of our theme? 
What meant the ancient sanctuary, the Mishkan? The presence 
of God was not limited by it. He being everywhere. But it was 
intended as the place where the people should meet Him, should 



iTahur-ha-arez, The Jerusalem Temple, too, had in its Holy of Holies 
a basic stone Eben-Shethia, claimed as the center of the world. The 
temples of Babylon, Mecca, etc., made similar claims. See Sayce's 
Religion of Babylon, II, 374. 

2 I Kings, viii, 27. Behold the heavens and the heavens of heavens 
contain thee not, the less can this house, 

3Hai-01om. 

^Maimonides' Guide, after Aristotle. 



THE IMPORT OF TABERNACLE AND TEMPLE. 273 

come prepared, properly tuned, in the right disposition of mind, 
the calm of the soul, the open eyes and the attentive ears, to find 
and see, listen to and hear the Godhead. The ancient sanctuary, as 
the modern one, is the special, consecrated place where man is to 
meet the divine. God, all-pervading, omnipresent, is present to 
man in the sanctuary, especially. 

Now the ancient Temple was, in many regards, more important 
than the modern one. The present house of worship, synagogue, 
church or mosque, has not fully the same significance as the 
Temple for ancient Israel. We moderns have as many houses of 
worship as there are many congregations. Yea, there are now^adays 
many shrines without congregations, houses of worship without 
worshipers. The Temple of our times is to many persons a 
solemn place for an occasional call. To others it is an opportunity 
for state and display. To others again it is the fifth wheel in the 
social carriage, utterly dispensable. To others, even one of scof- 
fing and irreverence. As there has always been preaching with- 
out point or contents, and spiritual men without spirit and with- 
out spirituality, even so with many people, w^orship has lost all 
credit, all credence, and all real meaning, it has become a mere 
stale lip-service, a banality. And this will go on so until men 
will succeed in having things called by their right names and the 
right men in the right places. 

Otherwise it was with the ancient Mishkan of Israel. It was 
not a Temple, but the Temple, the people's foundation, the cor- 
nerstone of Society, the only one national sanctuary, one Temple 
for the one people of the One God. Every Jew, wherever he re- 
sided, when praying, turned his eyes and thoughts towards that 
unique sanctuary. When the Reubenites in Joshua's time and the 
Samaritans in that of Ezra-Nehemiah, attempted to establish an 
extra shrine, it was cried down as rank apostasy. That one and 
unique national sanctuary had its own special, hereditary, conse- 
crated, national priesthood. A stranger who tried to intrude was 
to die for his presumption.^ Around that unique house settled 
the leading priestly families, the hereditary and anointed spiritual 
caste and the high-priest on top. There resided the great national 
authorities, the Synhedrion, the chief officers and magistrates, 
and close by the rulers and government. There was the brain, 



iThe stranger approaching shall die. IV M., i, 51. 



274 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

the heart and the nerve of the people closely grouped together. 
The public cult, service and worship did not consist, as in the 
Synagogue to-day, in simple prayers recited by a lay-man, but 
in various, complicated sacrifices and offerings, with religious 
pageant, a magnificent ritual requiring a numerous, carefully 
trained, hereditary priesthood to superintend it properly and effec- 
tively. This sacrificial cult and its ceremonies and rites were the 
privilege of and limited to the one great national Temple. It 
was termed Tabernacle, Mishkan, so long as the Hebrews were 
not definitely settled; it was later termed Sanctuary, Baith-ha- 
miqdash, from the times of King Solomon, who rebuilt it in stone, 
and during the first and second Jewish Commonwealths. 

Thus the ancient Temple was not simply a house of prayer, 
Baith-hatep'hila; no, it was the great important central institution 
of the Judaic State and people. It was the nucleus and founda- 
tion stone of the patriarchal race and its country, its citadel and 
capitol, the indissoluble bond, the unbreakable connecting tie 
between the scattered millions of the Diaspora, the center of 
gravitation and focus of all powers, social, political and religious. 
It was the Hebraic Kebla, the symbol of the unity of ancestry, 
blood and doctrine, the golden girdle of the union of the Twelve 
Tribes of ancient Benai-Israel, hailing from the scattered pasture- 
grounds of the Patriarchs in Khanaan ; with their originally many 
cults, clans and bloods of Amorite, Hittite, etc., origin. This unique, 
national Temple was emblematic : That all their diverse elements 
and tongues have fused and coalesced into the one people, race, 
faith and country of Judaea. Mount Moriah was the great fastness, 
the Capitol of the monotheistic world, as the Roman capitol on the 
Mount Palatine was the summit and head of the polytheistic 
world. It was the fountain-spring of the national life, the blood- 
reservoir of Judah. When tribe after tribe, district after dis- 
trict, city after city, and limb after limb were torn away from 
the Jewish body and country ; when Assyrians, Babylonians, Per- 
sians, Romans, Arabs, dismembered and lacerated the nation and 
led away captive entire tribes, still the nation lived. Israel was 
not struck to the heart, he was profusely bleeding, but the 
national soul still remained intact, the vital energy yet welling 
from brain and heart, soon restored and re-integrated the lop- 
ped-off limbs of the trunk, that national soul yet remained inte- 
gral, full of the inherited energy. It needed but a short respite, a 



THE IMPORT OF TABERNACLE AND TEMPLE. 275 

favorable opportunity to effect restoration, and such wonderful 
restoration repeatedly took place. 

So when the Persian Cyrus and Darius, authorized the captive 
Jews to return to their ancestral country, Zerubabel, Ezra and 
Nehemia, began the restoration of the country with the resto- 
ration and establishment of the Sanctuary on Moriah. So when 
the Maccabean leaders had routed the Syrian tyrant and ex- 
pelled his lieutenants and his armies from the heart of Judaea, 
the national independence was inaugurated with the freed, restored 
Temple. The Temple-rededication, Hamikah, meant the re-estab- 
lishment of the Judaean commonwealth. So later, when Ves- 
pasian and Titus had conquered every Judaean city and every 
stronghold, when they had slaughtered myriads and sold under the 
hammer more of its defenders, still they had not conquered the 
nation, it was yet pulsing in the heart. Only when they had 
burned down the Baith Ha-Miqdash, then Unis Judaeae, it 
mourned its Ninth of Ab, Rome triumphed, apparently. Still 
the nation revived and lived in its doctrine, in the schoolhouse, in 
the higher Temple restored in Yamnia by R- Johanan ben Sakkai, 
a better fighter than Bar-Geora and Bar-Kochba. When the 
physical force failed, there was yet hope for the intellectual one. 

Thus we have surveyed the import of the Sanctuary in Jew- 
ish history. We have seen, the Baith-Hamikdash was to ancient 
Israel his palladium, the central focus, the life-source of his 
existence. We shall therefore no longer find It strange that 
the Mosaic Legislator, spent so much care upon its establish- 
ment. We shall easily understand why so many chapters of 
Exodus are occupied with the description of all the great and 
the minor objects and arrangements of the Tabernacle. It was 
not simply a prayer-house, no, it was the most important insti- 
tution of the nation. It contained, religiously, politically, nation- 
ally, the entire soul-life of the people, the seat of all the powers, 
bodily, ethically and intellectually of the Commonwealth, the 
shrine where the national soul was breathing, in eternal touch 
with the Deity, the universal Soul. 

We emphasize : No doubt the Deity is infinite and eternal, at 
all times and everywhere, all pervading, not only in the Temple 
and on holidays. But everywhere else than in the sacred place 
and the sacred hour, man is not with God, not in a mood to feel, 
to be aware of and in touch with Him. The worldly cares and 



276 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

troubles, the arduous struggle for existence, the never resting 
passions, pulling our heart in a hundred directions : hope, fear, 
anxiety; ambition and disappointments, love, hate, jealousy, re- 
venge; all that shuts out the divinity from our eyes, feelings and 
thoughts. The solicitude for bread and gain, for today and to-mor- 
row, renders us blind, deaf and mute to the divine presence. The 
sanctuary is to counteract and neutralize these evil influences. 
The sacred place and hour are calculated to hush away for a 
time and exclude the passions with the worldly cares from our 
mind. Fear, covetousness, invidiousness, sensuality are silenced ; 
ambition, rivalry and disappointment are soothed. In the sacred 
place and hour we recognize the Deity within and around us, 
chastizing us, frowning on us, encouraging us, inspiring us with 
sweet hope, suave resignation and the will to be better and hap- 
pier. In the sacred hour and place, in prayer and meditation we 
take a better survey of things around and in us, passions arc 
soothed, reason and conscience awaken, the ever-speaking voice 
of God filling the universe, reverberates into our minds. In the 
sacred hour and place we stand "face to face" with God perme- 
ating all. The Prayer-house is our Baith-El, our Gate of 
heaven, our Jacob's ladder, the mysterious spot where we ascend 
to heaven, where the divine messengers descend to us, where 
we hold communion with the Supreme Source of Existence. 
And this is the import of our theme : "They shall build Me a 
sanctuary that I dwell among them." God is everywhere — for 
man He is in the hour and place of worship. 

ONCE AND NOW. 

Such was the sanctuary, Mishkan, in olden times. What is 
the Synagogue of today? Let us be plain. The Synagogue is 
what the Sanctuary was, a Synagogue is not. Such is the 
Institution, in spirit ; the structure simple, is not. The Syna- 
gogue, in the abstract, justly aspires to be what, once, the Temple 
was. To-day, a Synagogue, generally, is not what the Temple 
once was to ancient Israel of Judaea. 

There are to-day many synagogues in every large city. Each 
of them is built by a set of wardens for their special constituents. 
Each congregation is a unit for itself, not identified v/ith either 
its country or nationality. Just as a part is not the whole, but a 



ONCE AND NOW. 277 

fraction of the whole. Can we apply our text, in all its preg- 
nant import, to the present Synagogue? "They shall build for 
Me a Temple that I may rest among them." No absolute reply 
can be given to this query, we must qualify and specialize the 
problem. The Synagogue in the abstract, is identical with the 
Temple of Mosaic times, each concrete Synagogue is not. Why 
so? In our modern epoch of decentralization, division of labor 
and of function, ethical, intellectual, professional and social, 
divisions too have been decentralized and separated. The politi- 
cal and national functions of the ancient Sanctuary have been 
separated and are now elsewhere, greatly performed by other 
institutions and other functionaries than Temple and priests. 
Nevertheless the share of influence and importance of the Syna- 
gogue is still very great. Even in our times of divided influ- 
ences, if the Synagogue is devoted to its truly helpful objects, 
teaching, improving and enlightening, then it is qodesh, holy ; it is 
a Miqdash, a sanctuary, and God resides therein. If the people 
come there and seek Him, then they will find Him ; if their minds 
are w^ell prepared, they will not be disappointed. 

Consider this well : It is not the costliness, the elegance, the 
high dome of the edifice, not the splendor and wealth of the 
outfit, not the elaborate music, not the wordy eloquence of the 
pulpit which qualify a hall to be a sanctuary. No ! It is the 
sincere desire of the leaders to do good, the determined will of 
the Congregation to improve, the caliber of the teachings, intel- 
lectually and morally, the deep meditation and the fervent prayers 
which are the nerve, the essence and the import of the worship. 
These do make a room, a sanctuary. If the contents are holy, 
qodesh, then the house becomes a sanctuary, a Miqdash. If 
man seeks there his nobler self, in touch with the divine, then it is 
a house of God, now as once. 

Even so say our Agadists :^ "Beautiful art thou, my dear one. 
Thine eyes, a pair of doves (Song of Songs, 1, 15). — Lovely 
art thou, O Israel, lovely in the family, in the Synagogue and 
at work ; exhibiting everywhere charity, purity, godliness. Lovely 



^:n .HNS^ nnDEj' ,Dpb n^^n tmsj^ni n^an -n^nnx ^sj>yo3i -^^i^v^^ 

(Yalcut, 375} Dvn pD i:nn yhv 



278 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

in this world and in that to come. As the dove meekly submits 
to the slaughterer, even with such resignation is Israel suffering 
a long martyrdom, for the higher ethics and the nobler doctrines 
taught in the temple of Moriah and in the Synagogue of the 
Dispersion. And as long as such are taught and practiced, God 
is in the Synagogue, and the Synagogue is a sanctuary. 

THE HOLY VESSELS OF THE TABERNACLE. 

Having discussed and analyzed the import of the Mosaic itin- 
arary Mishkan (Sanctuary), let us now further elucidate our 
theme and succinctly examine its suggestive component parts, 
its sacred vessels and ritualistic ingredients. They are described 
in our passage {II M. 25) in all their details and specifications, 
in many chapters and pericopes. And this was not simply meant 
as a memorial record for the national archives, but with the in- 
tent and purpose of keeping and preserving the exact plan and 
all its details and minutia, a verbal fac-simile for future refer- 
ence; as if intending to recommend that model-structure, with 
all its component parts, as a pattern for ages to come, as the one 
ordained by God, and thus enable posterity to build a permanent 
definite Temple, after the sketch of that temporary Tabernacle. 
Jewish annals show indeed that this pattern was followed up, on a 
larger scale and proportions, later in the Temples built by Solo- 
mon, Ezra-Nehemia, the Maccabeans and Herod. 

According to the verbatim statement in this (H M. 25th) 
chapter, frequently and insistingly repeated in that connection in 
our pericope, Moses was bid to build the Tabernacle after the 
model and prototype shown him on the holy mount. So we read 
(H M. 25, 9) ''Thou shalt make me a sanctuary exactly as that 
I now show thee... the likeness of the Tabernacle and all its 
vessels, just so ye shall do". . .We have alluded to our expounders 
who took this literally and mystically : "Long ago our sages have 
whispered into our ears that the Mishkan was modeled after the 
pattern of the universe,"^ i. e., it is a microcosmos representing 
in miniature the very cosmos. Viz : A vague mystical view was 
entertained by the ancients that, there exists in the heavens the 
very prototype of a divine palace, of which this our Mosaic struc- 



•iK^^n^ ^r^nn D^iyn n^jnn ^y ncy:: pt:r^t^' /r^TS yV'n i^J -inD i 
(Akeidoth Itzchack 36 B.) p^n: nSiynK> 1^3 jn^"! ^^'^^^ P^nj K^n 



THE HOLY VESSELS OF THE TABERNACLE. 279 

ture was an exact copy,i and that to this refers the verse (25, 9) 
quoted. This view Philo, the Jewish philosopher of Alexandria, 
ingeniously elaborated,- showing that the sacred edifice symboli- 
cally remembered the universe, that the Mishkan proper and its 
external parts, represented the material world, that its Holy of 
Holies, Qodshai-Qodoshim, recalled the ideal universe; its four- 
fold coverings meant the four terrestrial elements ; the Two 
Cherubim were emblematic of the creative and the conserva- 
tive Powers; the seven lamps of the candelabrum (Menorah) 
alluded to the seven planets (of old astronomy) ; the Table with 
the twelve shewbread, recalled the Zodiac with its twelve con- 
stellations ; the altar of incense, man's gratitude for his sus- 
tenance, food, water, etc. 

Josephus (Antiquities, HI, 6 and 7) follows this trend of 
exegesis with small variations and many further minute speci- 
fications and elucidations, conforming to the threefold concep- 
tion of the world of ancient astronomy. According to him, the 
Aula, Hazor, of the Mosaic edifice symbolized the earth ; the 
Mishkan does the surrounding sea, and the Holy of Holies is 
emblem of the heavens. He says verbatim: The proportions 
and dimensions of the Tabernacle prove to have been an imita- 
tion of the system of the world. . .for the third part thereof to 
which the priests were not admitted is, as it were, a heaven re- 
served for God (Ibid., 6, 4, and Ibid., 7, 7). All that was a rep- 
resentation of the universe, consisting of three parts, viz : two 
for the priests and laity, such are land and sea for man, and a 
third division for God, the Holy of Holies ; twelve loaves were 
on the table, according to the 12 yearly months. The candle- 
stick branching out into seven lamps symbolized the seven 
divisions of the planets. Its seven lamps referred to the course of 
the planets. The four vails represented the four elements, viz : 
the fine linen, the earth ; the purple the sea ; the blue, the air ; 
the scarlet, the fire. The vestments of the high-priest were em- 
blems of the same." 

Some fathers of the Church, in part at least, adopted a similar 
interpretation. So do most of our older Jewish commentators, 
Radak and Abarbanel. More sober and rationalistic is Mai- 
monides (Guide, III, 45, etc.). He interprets our sacred struc- 



n^^D':)) nbv^b e>ip?D 1 

2Philo. Vita Mosis III, 665: Ta necte, the ideal, and ta aisteta, the 
sensual. 



28o EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

ture and its arrangements in the literal sense, not unlike to our 
above expounding: It was the great national Meeting-house of 
man with the Deity, for worship and inspiration. Its parapher- 
nalia, vessels and cult, all was calculated to impress upon the 
Congregation the Mosaic doctrines in their full and extreme op- 
position to polytheism and its heathen practices. But some 
Agadists enter into even more minute details, likewise proving 
the symbolic character of the sacred edifice, as a miniature copy 
of the universe ; others again as a miniature of the human body. 
The Church utilized that method in its own interest, viz : The 
Mosaic Mishkan was an anticipation and prototype of the future 
church, the Christian Congregation, the pope, as head thereof, 
the college of dignitaries, their sacred office and functions, etc. 
There will be no end of rehearsing all what phantasy and mystic 
speculations tried to fasten upon our simple theme. 

Further on we shall see some analogy to this in the Temple 
symbolism of Western Asia. According to our text, viewed by 
the searchlight of criticism, common sense, the contemporaneous 
history of neighboring Babylonian and Assyrian, and the sound 
interpretation of oriental, metaphorical language, we shall easily 
understand our subject, and especially verse 9th, alluding to a 
model shown to Moses on the sacred Mount. We shall find this 
without recurring to any artificial mysticism and farfetched alle- 
gories. Still we do admit a natural, rational symbolism, one 
befitting the occasion and the times, and well authenticated by a 
critical exegesis of ancient sacred books. To my mind the 
text clearly enough means, just what it expresses. It is the 
detailed description of the great Israelitish, theocratic Institu- 
tion, of the central national Sanctuary ; important at all times, 
but all-important at that hoary epoch and for ancient and re- 
ligious Israel, as corroborated by similar phenomena among the 
Babylonians, Assyrians, Egyptians, as above alluded to. Taking 
into consideration those remote ages and environments, that 
event well stands out before our gaze with its full meaning and 
import, without having reference to myth or mysticism. An 
event, 3500 years old, in Western Asia, where Cult, hierarchy, 
worship, were of the very first social, political and ethical im- 
portance; a young society, an incipient state, resting upon a 
sacerdotal and theocratic basis, and destined for long centuries 
to continue so, as above hinted at, for such circumstances the 



THE HOLY VESSELS OF THE TABERNACLE. 281 

sanctuary was to be the very foundation and nucleus of the 
commonwealth. The Cult was to form the strongest national bond 
of the Twelve Tribes. The one national Temple represented, both, 
the unity of the Deity and the unity of the clans. The sanctuary 
was also to symbolize the Deity in touch with the congregation, 
residing in its midst and leading it on, in peace and in war. It 
was a moving Sinai for perpetual revelations. 

Considering all that, the erection of the Tabernacle will appear 
to us as an event of the very greatest moment, and we shall find 
it fully justified that a large part of the II. Book of Moses is 
mainly occupied with its narrative, its minute description and its 
full arrangements. This point admitted, the sequel will appear 
perfectly natural. During that great period of formation and 
national birth, the escape from Egypt, the triumph at the Red 
Sea, or, according to Bruggsh-Bay's researches, the lake Sirbonis, 
the camping in the wilderness of Arabia, and the advent of the 
Sinaic period, the lawgiver did first elaborate his grand, Organic 
Law, the Ten Words, His social and ethical basis of his nascent 
people, the pillars upon which stands the civilization of Israel and 
of mankind. Then, still continuing in that vigorous atmosphere 
and that constructive epoch, for forty days (Ibid., 2i, 17) and 
then for forty years, a succinct outline of civil, penal and agrarian 
Code, later also of home-industrial laws was developed from 
the principles laid down in the organic Law. This was just 
what was indispensably necessary for an incipient people. So 
were gradually matured and promulgated the materials and ele- 
ments of the pericopes denominated : Jethro, Mishpatim, Ter- 
uma, from 11. M. 19th onwards. In the same epoch of the 
Israelitish establishment, the lawgiver formed in his exalted 
mind and saw mentally and ideally, the outline of a national 
Sanctuary, its urgency, its objects, its arrangements, structure, 
sacred vessels, minor utensils and all its paraphernalia. He saw 
all that in his idea, in his meditation, inspired thought. And of 
this inspiration we find in our chapters the faithful copy and 
description. 

So the artist sees in the mirror of his mind, his painting or his 
marble statue he is going to produce, long before he handles 
chisel or brush, long before he touches the marble or the canvas. 
He sees and contemplates it clearly, fully, with his mind's eye 
as plain and distinct, as if he had a pattern before his gaze. And 



282 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

this is the hkeness of the Tabernacle alluded to in 11. M. 25, 9, 
fully delineated in the middle part of our Book of Exodus. ^ 

A certain analogy, if not a pattern to our subject-matter, we 
find in the recently deciphered religio-philosophical concepts in 
ancient Egypt and in Babylonia. There the view was assumed 
that : Of each and every single object of this material world, 
there exists, first, a spiritual model, called : image, original, 
double, prototype, fac-simile, spirit or Soul, of each material 
body. These vague popular notions were then philosophically 
elaborated, so as to really mean that : The prototypes of each 
kind or species, are the realities of the world, permanent and 
abiding; while their grosser doubles, the bodily imitations which 
we see, are but ephemeral, evanescent, mortal. Such a proto- 
type was termed in Egypt the Ka, and pretty much the same 
thing was denominated in Babylon the Zi, viz : life, spirit. 
Ka and Zi are not perfectly identical, nor is either fully identical 
with our concept of soul, yet they are so, essentially, though 
diversely expressed.^ Prof. A. H. Sayce points out, that this 
view became later even the doctrine of the Ideas of Plato. The 
Platonic Ideas were the elaborated Egypto-Babylonian Ka and 
Zi doctrines, metaphysically reconstructed, first crude popular 
beliefs, distilled and formulated to a logical, metaphysical con- 
cept. At the Academy of Plato it was taught that all things, 
bodily and mortal, are but copies from such prototypes. Ideas 
which emerged from the divine laboratory, the thought of Deity. 
At first God thought the universe and each of its species ; His 
thought created the Ideas; and these Ideas condensed as the 
single, bodily objects of the visible world. These Ideas alone 
are real and permanent. In concrete, material form, they are 
infinitely multiplied, in mortal, ephemeral, earthly copies. They 
are the bodily objects we, men, grasp with our senses. Leibnitz 
elaborated this theory into his own doctrine of the Monads, 
Strikingly similar is the mode of thought underlying our theme 
(II M. 25, 9) : Moses saw, ideally, in the Sinaic sphere, the 
pattern and the plan in outline, of his young nation's coming 
sanctuary, and in that inspiring atmosphere he received the 



"^All as I show thee. The likeness of the Tabernacle, and of all its 
furnishings, so ye shall do." 

2See Maspero, Hommel, Zimmerman on that, and especially A. H. 
Sayce's Religion of Egypt and Babylonia, Edinburgh, 1902, pp. 48, 56, 
58, 185, 276, etc. 



THE HOLY VESSELS OF THE TABERNACLE. 283 

divine call upon him to realize the sketch materially; to realize 
it as a Mislikan, a meeting-place for his people with the Deity ; 
to copy the prototype he had seen in his vision on the Mount, 
as a substantial edifice for sacred purposes. 

WORSHIP AND SACRIFICIAL CULT. 

The most sacred parts of that structure were : The Holy Ark 
with the two cherubs, the two altars, the candelabrum and the 
table of shew-bread. The Holy Ark contained the two tablets 
of stone with the Ten Words engraved on them and, according 
to further reports, also some reliques of national import to be 
preserved for posterity. Our text ordains : To place in the Arch 
the Testimony, Eduth (II M., 25, 21), which is assumed as identi- 
cal with the Decalogue-scroll. Whether it contained also copies of 
other parts of the Pentateuch, is claimed by some, but critically 
not proved, rather disproved. 

Of next importance were the two altars, one for incense and 
one for bloody sacrifices ; the candlestick with the seven lamps and 
the Golden Table with the twelve shewbread. Their analogon, too, 
one finds in the chief sanctuary of Babylon, but having there a 
vastly different meaning. There they can be decidedly retraced 
to idolatry, ancestor and star-worship, anthropomorphism and 
polytheism. The ancient polytheists used to offer food, drink and 
incense to their departed ones. A large and prosperous posterity, 
combined with conquest, soon raised the tribal patriarch to a na- 
tional genius, a god. The gods had been men, leading, heroic 
chieftains became gods. To them gifts, bloody sacrifices and in- 
cense were offered on their graves. When, in the course of time, 
they became gods, such offerings continued to be deposited on 
their altars. Most, if not all, of the Egyptian and Babylonian 
shrines were both tombs and temples, tombs of the original mor- 
tal occupant and temples of the canonized god, the apotheosized 
ancestor. All that is pure idolatry, execrated and severely pro- 
hibited by Mosaism. In the Bible and Talmud it is ever remem- 
bered as idolatrous ''funeral-offerings. "^ It began with the su- 
perstitious assumption that the dead will revive and enjoy of such 
gifts, and it culminated in the other more heinous pretense that 
they have become gods, nay, even the Supreme God. 



1 Sibhai-Methim. 



284 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

Such were the Babylonian Merodach, the Assyrian Assur and 
the Egyptian Osiris. Then dead-offerings were thus the very 
center of idolatry. They rested upon the superstition of deified 
men and anthropomorphized gods. Mosaism proscribed and ve- 
hemently forbade all such offerings to the dead, divinized man 
and humanized gods. But, in the course of prehistoric times, 
sacrifices of animals, meats, incense and libations had become the 
universal mode of worship, even with peoples and sanctuaries in- 
clining towards more pure and lofty ethical religions. So Mo- 
saism, too, had to concede sacrifices as a mode of worship, but 
only to the One, Spiritual God, the Supreme Mind, not to many, 
nor to material divinities. Moreover, it expressly stated that these 
sacrifices are not meant as God's food and drink, but as a symbol- 
ical atonement for man, an expiation for his sins, an expression 
of repentance of the worshipper, or of his reverence and gratitude 
for divine benefactions. The Bible and the Pentateuch are per- 
fectly plain concerning the significance of the sacrificial cult. The 
prophets mention it even with small tenderness, often almost with 
irony. These sacrifices are emblems merely of transgression, ex- 
piation and forgiveness, old forms for ever-living ideas, and con- 
tain nothing of anthropomorphism and polytheism. Maimonides, 
the great teacher of the twelfth century, with all his reverence 
for authority, is perfectly plain : Sacrifices are a popular con- 
cession.^ 

TABLE OF SHEWBREAD. 

Even so plain and positive are the other leading parts, the holy 
components of the Mishkan, vastly differing from such a possible 
parallel in polytheistic cults. Let us look to their import, seriatim, 
as described in our chapter II M., 25, etc. As hinted at : Mai- 
monides' Guide III, is very plain and outspoken concerning the 
sacrificial cult. He declares it to be a remnant of prehistoric, 
pagan habits and practices, in Mosaism but a compromise, rather 
tolerated and conceded to, than ordained in the monotheistic cult, 



,ni:]npn y-i ,miDyn p ]^^n ni^ 12-1x^3 Maimonid Guide III 46 1 

.b'?:i i:)V''y xt:n px rj^'D n^'y: sb dn 

Again Ibid, iii, 47, he says: See the startling difference between 
burning one's son to an idol — and offering a pigeon or a handful of 
flour in the service of God. Maimonides hereby plainly suggests that 
the sacrificial service of the Pentateuch was a mere compromise. In 
place of human sacrifices to the idols, the people were conceded 
animal sacrifices to God. 



TABLE OF SHEWBREAD. 285 

just as often declared by the prophets and psahiiists. Whilst this 
greatest of mediaeval teachers is rather reticent concerning the 
meaning of the sacred vessels of the Tabernacle. At his epoch he 
had good reasons for his reserve. His plainness regarding the 
sacrifices caused him too much trouble and obloquy, so he says 
(Guide III) : "To this day I know not what was the meaning of 
the Golden Table with the twelve shewbread." Present times allow 
us to explain : We read that in the Babylonian Merodach Temple, 
too, stood such a table with as many loaves. But the difference 
is in the meaning and import of that sacred piece of furniture. 
There it meant the bread of the god. Thousands of years pre- 
viously it meant the nourishment of the departed ancestor, later 
apotheosized as Merodach. In the Mosaic Mishkan it symbol- 
ized, not God, but man and his needs. It was publicly consumed 
by the priests and offered by the people, representing their need 
of divine assistance in the battle for existence. 

So, I believe, the following may be said on that head : The 
table with the twelve shewbread remembered the material side of 
man : man as a bread-eater, his needs as a mortal being. It repre- 
sented the wants of the congregation, its petitions for bodily sup- 
port, during the twelve yearly months, of the twelve tribes of Benai 
Israel; health, sustenance, bread and raiment. Man consists not 
solely of mind or soul, but also of body, and provision for the 
body's sustenance and preservation must be made. Hence the 
supplications to the Deity, to provide for the numerous earthly 
necessities of the people and its material prosperity. The Taber- 
nacle, the splendidly consecrated residence of the protecting God- 
head, was, naturally, a place to offer before the throne of Mercy, 
petitions for subsistence and daily supplies, as also to offer to Him 
grateful thanks for benefactions already obtained. The shew- 
bread, lehem hapanim, bread of the Presence, we said, was to be 
found in the Babylonian Merodach Temple, and even so denomi- 
nated : Akel Pani. There it meant bread for the god Merodach, 
or Marduk. Here it symbolized man and his bodily needs, with 
his petitions and thanksgivings to Providence for the daily bread. 
Anciently bread was the emblem of man. So also in Homer man 
is designated as hrotos, bread-eater. ^ 



iBrotos, brute, Brod, bread eating-man and animal. On Akel Pani, 
and lehem hapanim, see A. H. Sayce's Religion of the Babylonians, p. 
455. Also, Zimmerman. Whether Akel pani be identical with panis, 
bread, is improbable. Why should Semites use an Aryan word? 



286 

THE CANDELABRUM. 

When the bodily needs are provided for, as food, clothing, 
housing, what comes next? Mental needs, cares for the cultiva- 
tion of the mind, the development and training of our nobler self, 
our qualifications and capacities. Animal man once satisfied, ra- 
tional man steps in, asking for light, knowledge, culture. Man is 
born with the rudiments of reason, the faculties to acquire knowl- 
edge by experiences and meditation. \\'ithout culture the mind 
remains dwarfish, rudimentary, soon rust sets in and it shrinks 
prematurely. Thus mentally crippled, man then moves and sneaks 
on blindly, groping his w-ay with his physical eyes, wdien missing 
his mental ones. As open eyes in the dark are useless, even so 
is rudimentary reason without the torch of culture and knowl- 
edge. To contemplate the world lit and illumined by science and 
experience, or dark with ignorance, is vastly different. To ob- 
serve and examine the starry heavens, the roaring ocean-billows, 
the prairies teeming with animality, the meadows blooming with 
rich harvests and odoriferous plants ; or to listen to recitations 
from Euripides, Schiller or Haydn's compositions, outfitted with 
the understanding of poetry and harmony, equipped with the study 
of astronomy, geology, botany, biology, etc., or ignorant of all 
that — is radically different. The one sees, indeed, the infinitude 
of the universe with all its wondrous grandeur, harmony, regu- 
larity, beauty ; the other looks on, stupidly and unconcernedly, 
without any clear understanding of what he sees. He wonders 
rather why others are enraptured, while he is callous, because ig- 
norance renders him blind and indifferent. The enthusiasm of 
the poet, the artist, the scientist, he never experiences. The sailor 
visits all the lakes, seas and continents, without noticing anything 
else than good, cheap hostelries. Aristotle, Galileo and Bacon, 
Humboldt and Herbert Spencer espied the laws of nature in 
their own. private study. Thus the culture of our mental ca- 
pacities is all-important. Now these higher elements of our hu- 
manity, ethical feeling, reason, intelligence, love of knowledge, ap- 
plication, acquisition of experiences and sciences, the aspirations 
of the real, the higher man, that is represented by the candelabrum. 
Mcnorah, with its seven branches of light, the "seven sciences," 
the "seven planets" of old astronomy. Light has been justly con- 



THE CANDELABRUiM. 287 

sidered in ancient and in modern times as the most befitting em- 
blem of knowledge and science, because what light is for the body, 
science is for the mind. Without light the body gropes in the 
dark and is in danger at any moment to shatter and break down. 
Exactly the same is knowledge for the mind. The mind without 
experience and knowledge is practically not existing. Without 
knowledge man is hardly a man. Etimologically man means a 
bodily creature endowed with reason, iiicns. Intelligence thus, is 
properly the characteristic and essence of man. Man without 
mind, mens, is a sword without a blade. Man consisting of both 
body and mind is thus represented in the Tabernacle, bodily by 
the shewbread, mentally by the chandelier with its seven branch- 
lamps, his diverse and manifold mental and moral capacities, apti- 
tudes and possibilities. He supplicates the Deity for the salvation 
and support of his body and of his spirit, for material and for 
intellectual food. 

THE ALTARS. 

After these needs are supplied and provided for, what are the 
next higher cares and aspirations? They are the w^ants of our 
soul, our highest self, those of our heart in its noblest stages. Our 
highest self is vaguely designated by the Greek, thumos; Latin, 
animns; Hebrew, /c"^ ; German, C^^f/n/^/Zz ; corresponding to English 
vague, mind, heart, soul. That is the seat of our noblest feelings, 
sympathies and aspirations, of our true and essential humanity. 
The Gernucth, heart, is our highest and noblest self, the divine in 
man. Animals, too, have ideas and sentiments. Birds build their 
nest ; they love and provide for their young. The beaver erects 
cottages and builds bridges. The ants live in society and in 
communities. The dog is true to his master, even starving. But 
none has wiiat the English term heart, the German Gemueth, the 
Hebrew Ich, the Latin animus, the Greek, perhaps, thumos. Ethi- 
cally it is wider than the earth, deeper than the ocean, sublimer 
than the starry heavens and vaster than the universe. Small is 
bodily man ; vast is his mind, boundless is his heart. As matter, man 
is a brute ; as spirit he is above the ape ; as soul or heart he is the 
peer of an angel. As an animal he needs a little food, as mind he 
needs vast knowledge, as soul he needs spirituality, enthusiasm, 
holiness, beatitude, immortality, messianity, unison with the Infi- 
nite Godhead. Desponding in his loneliness, doubtful in his think- 



288 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

ing, he is alone blessed in his all-consciousness, as an atom integral 
with the starry heavens. "Himmlisches Yauchzen . . . Zu Tode 
betruebt". . .Close-by the grave, hoping for heaven, fused with the 
universe, absorbed by the Deity, Nirvana — that is man as a psy- 
che, Gemueth, thumos, soul. 

Of such an extra Gemueth' s entity, the needs are higher than his 
mental and his intellectual endowments. They are ethical, spir- 
itual, ethereal, divine. Man's longing for absolute truth, full jus- 
tice, pure sympathy, universal fellowship, ideal goodness, perfec- 
tion — are of such a nature. Our religious needs, communion with 
the divine, the eternal, such longings — faith alone creates and 
satisfies, not cold thinking, reason and intellectual knowledge. It 
asks for intuition, immediate, absolute. 

Mark well this vast distinction between our intellectual needs 
and those of our spirituality, the heart, the Gemueth. Positive 
knowledge, mathematical science is, comparatively, but of a small 
compass. Our entire human life is dominated rather by ideas, 
aspirations and cravings, scientifically not proved and substantia- 
ted. Our sense of duty, virtue, purity, justice, generosity, nobility, 
charity, altruism, adherence to principle, abiding faith, self-sacri- 
fice, patriotism, pan-humanity, spirituality, religion, perfection, 
holiness — all these highest of humane aspirations, uplifting man 
above the animal sphere, making up his real distinction, the vast 
gap, the immeasurable gulf between man and brute, never to be 
bridged over by the evolution hypothesis, or by educational devel- 
opment — all that can not be proved by syllogisms, and bears no 
mathematical demonstration. It is an innate postulate for the 
vast majority of people. All that is within us, aparently born 
with us, entailed froni a long line of civilized ancestors reared 
under the same ethical ideals, "organized impressions," to use a 
known Herbert Spencerian phrase. All that fills our soul, dictates 
our course of life and our individual actions, clings to us during 
all our existence. Still it is not mathematically proved, it is ethe- 
real, an undefinable postulate, an ethical category, not demon- 
strable. We assume and believe it by a sort of intuitive conviction, 
a tacit faith, a psychical instinctive assent. Call it an inborn cate- 
gory, an organized inheritance, a moral instinct, a mysterious pre- 
monition, Ahnung. We can give no proof of its absolute objective 
reality, still it is subjectively alive, it dictates our daily doings as 
truism and iron fact. 



THE ALTARS. 289 

Now, all these feelings and ideas which we may designate as 
intuitive perceptions, belong to the domain of faith. They are 
innate, organized religion. The concept of religion subsumes 
them all. That religious domain is not antagonistic and inimical 
to science and logical thinking. No, far from that. That religious 
domain is most probable. It is a daily, silent experience, counting 
as a certainty to the vast majority of men. The average man as- 
sumes it and assents to it as a matter of course, without asking 
for any further proof. Therefore shall true religion never be in 
contradiction to science and logic. When Thomas Aquino form- 
ulated his axiom : ''Credo quia absurdum est," he made religion a 
poor compliment. It can never go counter and override stern 
logic. We can never treat as a religious truth what we positively 
see to be the opposite of logical, mathematical truth. Hence is 
Thomas Aquino's rule a fallacy. But without doing violence to 
reason and clear consciousness, we may assume that religion often 
reaches beyond reason and transcends reason. Many ethical in- 
tuitive assumptions may be true subjectively, and even objective- 
ly, still we are logically unable either to prove or to disprove them. 
Such are the above enumerated highest concepts and ideas. Such 
is our faith in God, soul, truth, virtue, wisdom, that "honesty is the 
best policy." To claim to beHeve what I see and know not to be 
true is hypocrisy or stupidity. But to assume as true what I in- 
tuitively see and feel to be true, but I can not give the mathe- 
matical proof thereof, nor is there anything proving the contrary, 
that is perfectly admissible, correct and fair; that is humanely 
established truth; the vast majority of rational mankind have been 
acting on that principle, for, my doubts may be erroneous, my 
reason may be inefficient, while stern facts are not. In our con- 
science and consciousness we find the obligation of rendering jus- 
tice to our next, truth above all, sympathy as an element of hap- 
piness, duty as a category and rule of conduct, family dearer than 
self, and the God-belief, with justice and reason as supreme rule, 
towering above all, as basis, dome and substantiation of all. Still 
all that we can neither mathematically prove nor mathematically 
disprove. But w^e can show its strong and salient probability, its 
veri-similitude, and that is sufficient, that constitutes a moral 
truth. And this is the position of Mosaism, of the Jewish moral- 
ists and of all the ethicists of Greece, Babylon, Egypt. It is cor- 



290 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

corroborated, too, by leading philosophers of old and modern 
schools. 1 

Now this our own spirituality, the very principle and essence 
of man, as distinguished from the animal, the thymos or soul, in 
the highest sense, aspires, by perfection and holiness, by a life 
devoted to reason and truth, at the reunion with its sacred source, 
the divine. The human soul is a drop from that source, a spark 
from that world-flame, just as a molecule is an atom of the ma- 
terial world. As the river ever tends to the ocean, as the sun-ray 
emanates from and tends back to the light-source, even such is 
the bent of the well-developed man, to rejoin its divine origin. 
And this trend of the mind towards the divine, which already 
Horner^ experienced : "All men have a longing for the gods," 
and which Reuchlin liked so well, this its eternal strivings upwards 
and onwards, for perfection and holiness, is beautifully and fit- 
tingly symbolized in our Tabernacle by the altar. On the sacri- 
ficial altar, the animal dies, and in the shape of a burning cloud, 
ascends on high, decomposed into its original elements. On the 
altar of incense the precious spices burn up in an odoriferous fire- 
column, rise heavenwards and as an ethereal pillar of perfume and 
sweet-smell, reach heaven, a fit emblem of our higher humane 
aspirations, our ethical endeavors, our longings for perfection, 
holiness, intellectuality^ divesting ourselves of all materiality, 
setting the soul free to commune with its sacred source and be- 
come one with the Divine ; the sublime vision of occidental im- 
mortality and oriental Nirvana. The altar illustrates the idea that 
the animality in man becomes eliminated, dies in self-sacrifice, 
and the purely spiritual elements, mind in the highest sense, soars 
up and merges into its ineffable fountain-head,^ the Deity. 

Thus, the table of shewbread represents man as a body, the 
candelabrum represents man as an intelligence, and the altar 
represents man as a spiritual, religious being. Taken into careful 
consideration old Eastern symbolism and speculation, times and 
environments, these emblems well answer their purpose. To the 
Oriental the language was suggestive and plain. 



iPythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Kant's Practical Reason, Descarte's 
Philosophy, Herbert Spencer's Ethics, Principles. 

20dysee III, 48. Pantes de Theon chateoussi onthropos. 

3See Maimonides' Guide, III, 54. 

■^Akin to that is the Brahmanic, not Buddhistic Nirvana. The three- 
fold soul was taught in Egypt as Ka, Kuh, Ba; and in Hebrew litera- 
ture as Z'^: nr^^} nn See IMaspero on that and A. H. Sayce's Religion 
of Babylon and Egypt, p. 60. 



291 



THE HOLY ARK. 

Are our bodily needs provided for, is our reason cultivated and 
instructed, is our soul spiritualized, imbued with great ethical 
aspirations, continually and unswervingly directed towards the 
Divine, then communion with Him will surely follow. The Deity 
will impart to us His revelations. Our spiritual cravings and 
efforts will attain at the higher, yea, the divine truths.^ The 
Godhead will impart to us doctrines and teachings leading to 
man's highest salvation. These future revelations, this unison of 
the divine with the humane, is represented by the Holy Ark, Arofi 
haqodesh, containing the Two Tables with the Mosaic organic 
law, the ethico-social contract, the Covenant of the Ten Words, 
the doctrine which man apprehends as the eternal, moral, mental 
and social verities, as the nucleus of divine principles underlying 
our ethical state ; not simply as expedients of sickly, pale, human 
ingenuity, contrived by political economists ; not as cunningly 
devised checks and weights upon daring selfishness ; not as tram- 
mels imposed by the mentally stronger minority to intimidate the 
weak majority,^ but as innate social categories, as eternal prin- 
ciples of the just, the true, the wise and the equitable; as ethical 
rules of conduct, prescribed by Eternal Wisdom for human bet- 
terment, peace and sanctification. The Holy Ark is the focus 
where the human mind m.eets with the divine Mind and both 
come in touch. As when the positive and the negative poles of 
electricity, coming in contact, burst forth in flaming reverbera- 
tions, even so the Ark with the Testimony was the focus where 
the prophetic soul soaring upwards reached the World-Soul, and 
under peals of Sinaic thunder and lightning emitted the electrical 
spark of the great Decalogue doctrine; a nucleus of leading ax- 
ioms that grandly and everlastingly influence man and connect 
him firmly and indissolubly with the Supreme Mind, leading him 
onwards to ever greater self-improvement and ever higher planes 
of civilization and perfection. 



iThe Rabbis say: The righteous dwell (in Paradise) crown on head 
and enjoy of the beauty of the Shekina. This sensuous trope Maimon- 
ides, Yad, Mada, expounds: They reach the utmost limits of the truth. 
Guide III states this as the object of the sage on earth. Such is the 
Hindoo Rishi, intellectually the highest. 

2Schiller's Resignation: "Des kranken Weltplans schlau erdachte 
Retter, . .den Menschenwitz der Menschen Nothdurft leihet." 



292 

KAPPORETH AND CHERUBIM. 

The Holy Ark was covered with a lid, Kapporeth, "Cover of 
Atonement," a golden ceiling over that chest, to the right and the 
left side of which stood mystic figures termed cheruh, cherubim 
in plural, two such cherubs stood on the lid, human figures in 
youthful beauty and innocence, with uplifted wings, spreading out 
high and wide over the ceiling, on a level, as if flying, the two 
pairs of wings forming thus a kind of sacred canopy to the ark 
and its golden covering beneath. Perhaps the wings rather repre- 
sented the mercy-seat whereupon the divine Majesty was moving, 
as Zeus on eagles' wings. The scriptural terms are :(n M., 25, 23) 
"I shall meet thee there and speak to thee, from above the Kap- 
poreth, between the two cherubs above the Ark of the Testimony, 
whatever I shall bid thee for the Benai Israel." This would con- 
vey that the lid of the ark was the seat, and the cherubim with 
their wings outspread, formed the canopy. So in Isaiah vi, 2 : ''The 
Deity was sitting on a high throne, with seraphim (not cherubim) 
hovering on each side, with outstretched wings ; while Ezekiel's 
seat of revelation is more elaborate: four Hajoth with straight 
feet and outstretched wings, with fourfold faces, the eagle 
conspicuous, but one spirit moving spontaneously in the four 
Hajoth. Upon their heads rested a kind of platform, the out- 
stretched wings beneath the platform ; above the heads and wings 
appeared like a sapphire throne and above this a similarity of a 
vision of a man, and I saw like the color of hashmal, as a fire- 
blaze round about it ... as the colors of the rainbow on a rainy 
day. . .Such was the halo round about it; such the vision of the 
semblance of the glory of Ihvh. And I fell on my face"(Ezekiel I.) 
Here the divine Mercy-seat seems to rest upon the out- 
stretched wings, above the heads of the four living creatures the 
Hajoth, the vehicle of the divine revelation. So we read in the 
Davidian hymn (II Sam. xxii, 11) : ''He rode on the cherub, flew 
and revealed Himself on the wings of the storm." So also Ps. 18, 
11. — We said the lid was denominated Kapporeth, from the Hebrew 
kapor, to cover, atone, forgive; the mercy-seat, wherefrom the 
Deity was ideally assumed to grant pardon and oblivion of sins, 
to vouchsafe revelations and deliver behests to the faithful. That 
was the most solemn moment of the atonement-day when the 



KAPPORETH AXD CHERUBIM. 293 

higfh-priest entered the Ploly of Holies, with the pan of fire-in- 
cense in hands, stepped before the ark, sprinkled a few drops of 
blood towards the curtain of the ark, pronounced a prayer and 
was presumed to obtain forgiveness of sins from that very mercy- 
seat for Israel and its priesthood. 

In the chest of the Ark, beneath the lid, was placed the law, 
termed Bdiith, the Testimony. Whether this comprised but the 
two tables of stone, or the scroll with the Ten Words, or many 
more scrolls of the Pentateuch, the opinions differ. Other reliques 
of national import, too, were preserved there, as hinted at above. 
So we read : "I shall meet thee there, and speak to thee from above 
the Kapporeth, between the two cherubim above the Ark of the 
Testimony, all whatsoever I shall impart of my behests to Israel." 
(II M., 25, 23). 

We have hinted at some analogies with our theme in Babylonia. 
In the area of the Temple of Bel-Merodach, the highest deity in 
Babylon, stood an imposing structure, a three hundred feet high 
square-tower, termed Ziggiirat.^ It had seven floors or stages 
(seven heavens and seven planets). The seventh stage corre- 
sponded to the Holy of Holies, it contained no image whatever, 
but it did contain a golden table with shewbread, and a golden 
couch from which the deity was presumed to deliver its oracles to 
a prophetess who, alone, was admitted to that exalted place. 
There, too, one finds other formal similarities with that of the 
Temple of Herod especially. But spiritually the two sanctuaries 
were as distant as monotheism is from polytheism. 

''I shall impart to thee there all I may ordain to Israel" again 
has another, most significant, bearing. It implies the important 
verit}- that the Sinaic revelation was and is not the final one 
vouchsafed to Israel ; that God has not spoken the last word in 
that Eduth, or Testimony, deposited within the ark ; that the 
Deity will never cease his revelations of further truths to human 
intelligence ; that betterment, progress, is solemnly promised and 
confirmed as infinite. W^e emphasize this verse. It states that the 
spiritual com.munion between God and man will ever be enter- 
tained in the Holy Ark, in conscience and reason ; that m.any 
new revelations w^ere and are in store, reserved for aspiring hu- 



lA. H. Sayce's Religion of Babylon, p. 454. Ziggurat claimed to be 
the foundation stone of the world. It corresponded to the Eben 
Bhethia of the Herodian Temple, mentioned above. 



J94 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

manity, and that God has never stopped his inspirations to those 
who seek them sincerely. The Mercy-seat between the two cheru- 
bim was the august place reserved in the Tabernacle for such new, 
ever continuing teachings ; and this Mercy-seat is not destroyed 
with the Moriah Temple by Titus and his army, but ever subsists 
and emits its divine inspiration in the human mind. 

FORM OF THE CHERUBIM. 

The form of the cherubim on the ark is differently described by 
sacred and profane writers. Antiquarians believe they repre- 
sented angels, genii of the divine, winged, young male figures, 
the body prone, inclined forwards, looking toward each other 
and downwards, the wings fully spread out, tending upwards. 
All four wings on a level ; the figure witnessing thus of a double 
nature, human and angelic, with feet and wings. Standing on the 
lid and soaring heavenwards, again symbolized, yea, denicted, 
man's double nature; his material eye b^nt earthwards, and his 
psychical eye, his ethereal, winged mind, directed towards the 
spiritual realm; ever he stands on the dust of the ground and 
aspires to the light of the skies ; he grasps for the earthly bounties 
and longs for heavenly harvests ; he anxiously treasures up the 
acquisitions of the past and constantly drifts and aspires to new 
discoveries and further revelations ; conservative to obstinacy, ever 
looking to his ancestry, still dashing headlong to new experi- 
ments, higher developments and humane improvements. 

Such new revelations bind man ever more to the realms of the 
eternal and the divine ; he becomes ever more ethical, spiritual, 
and his perfectibility is infinite; he may yet discover the higher 
laws of health and life ; yea, extend human life to centuries ; with- 
out pain and sickness ; he may yet travel through the airy spaces 
from New York to Berlin during one night. Will he also dis- 
cover the panacea against folly and vice ? Theoretically he may ! 

THE MISHKAN AND ITS OUTFIT. 

Thus the ancient Tabernacle represented the idea of ever ad- 
vancing humanity, from the past to the future, ever onwards; 
both conservative and progressive ; treasuring up the experiences 
of the past and using them as the bridge for new efforts, new ac- 



THE MISHKAN AND ITS OUTFIT. 295 

quisitions, ever thus remaining in touch with the Divine, ever de- 
veloping with the universe; men, universe and the divine — one 
unfolding stream. And the tabernacle was its miniature picture, 
a plastic popular illustration of the grand world-panorama, and its 
motto was our verse: ''They shall build Me a sanctuary that I 
dwell among them." 

No doubt, we hear frequently enough: ''Wherefore a temple? 
We need dwelling, school, court and pleasure-houses, that an- 
swers to some definite human purpose. But wherefore prayer- 
houses ? Poor reasoning ! We have above discussed it and say 
here but in short : We are animal and reason ; but we are even 
more : Soul, Gemiieth, thymos; and that, too, has its needs. It 
needs a house of worship, an opportunity for the cultivation of 
our highest endowments and capacities, the real laboratory of 
civilization, the propelling force, the locomotive and steam of our 
humanhood. What is the cause that we so often hear complaints 
made about the lack of the nobler virtues^ the higher learning, 
veneration for parents and superiors? What is the cause that 
"marriage is a failure," higher education deemed waste of time? 
Wherefore complaints about moral decrepitude, about intellectual 
mediocrity, contempt of everything, except — an independent for- 
tune? What is the cause that the young often desolate the par- 
ental heart ? That no less often the parent sets to the young such 
a poor example ? The cause is : Neglect of true worship, of 
sincere prayer. We have enough of lip-service, of cold pomp and 
mechanical ceremonies ; not enough of heart-prayer, of true self- 
examination, of insight into our heart, of the culture of our nobler 
self. These need the temple. Of these the house of worship is 
the proper sphere, the opportunity where we rid ourselves of our 
coarser materialistic alloy and aspire towards the true and th^ 
good. The table with the shewbread as yet represents man with 
his bodily needs, for Mosaism is not a religion of ascetism ; it 
aims not at the monastery; nor at the grave as did Egypt. It 
rather puts forward this actual, earthly world, as the scope of its 
legislation: "Observe my statutes and judgments, which man 
shall perform and live by them." (Ill M., 18, 5) This pregnant 
verse the Talmud correctly emphasizes : Live, not die by them.^ 
The Thora is for the preservation, not the deterioration of man, 



Dna T\)D'^ N^i...Dn3 ^ni 1 



396 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

the world is to be built up.^ But at the same time the law aspires 
at rendering the earth heavenly, not a sea of misery and vice, but 
of wisdom and happiness ; to edify, refine, sanctify and improve 
man. 

We sum up. The sacred candelabrum, as in the synagogue, 
now, the continual lamp — Ner Tamid — remembers man's intel- 
lectuality, reason, knowledge, all-sided development, as the aim 
of life, symbolized by its seven branches, its sevenfold light. The 
altar represents his moral conscience at one with reason, faith 
and reason in harmony, our religious aspirations and our mental 
strivings reconciled. The ark with the testimony is emblematic of 
revelation, man ever in communion with the Intellectus Activus, 
inspired by Him whenever sincerelv desired, the union of the 
human soul with the divine Mind. The Kapporeth or Mercy- 
seat with the cherubim, is the promise of eternal revelations, sym- 
bolizing tlie ever-continuing communion of the Divine with the 
striving, aspiring spirit of man. man's capacity of infinite develop- 
ment, of bodily, mental and ethical perfection. And all this is 
finely expressed by our leading theme : "They shall make Me a 
sanctuary, that I dwell among them." In the prayer-house man 
is a spiritual being and the Shekina rests in his bosom. 

EXODUS AND ITS TRILOGY. 

In the preceding pages we have discussed the several sections 
and chapters of the II Book of Moses, then discussed and ana- 
lyzed their leading themes and subjects bearing upon its doctrines, 
laws and worship. We have first seen the history of the issue 
of the Benai-Israel from Egypt ; next the Decalogue, the Revela- 
tion from the Sinaic period and its successive unfoldings, an out- 
line of a Code ; finally the construction of the Mishkan, Israel's 
oldest house of worship. These leading topics with many minor 
ones, occupy the entire Second Book of Moses. We have espe- 
cially considered the three middling sections, or pericopes of that 
Book, II M., 19 — 25, denominated: Jethro, Mishpatim, Teruma,^ 
and devoted to these subjects. These three sections forming a sort 
of Trilogy, treat, in some sense, of the soul, the body, with the 



Is. 45—18 mv^ n3EJ>^ 1 
2 Judgments, heaves, Jethro was Mosis' father-in-law. 



EXODUS AND ITS TRILOGY. 297 

limbs and the external frame of the Mosaic structure. The peri- 
cope Jethro, closing the history of the Exodus, enlarges upon the 
advent of the Sinaic period, with its memorable era-making reve- 
lation of the Ten Commandments, the Great Charter of Israel and 
of mankind, the basis and substantiation of all manhood, human 
dignity, right and duty. It is the distinctive line and differentia- 
tion between man and brute, the epitome of man's spirituality, as 
a being knowing duty, freedom, God. It is his eternal Bill of 
Rights against all sorts of usurpations, dynastic, hierarchic, social. 
The Decalogue epoch divides human history in two halves, before 
and after it. It is leading in JNIosaism. 

The sacred books of ancient Egypt, Babylonia^ and Khanaan may 
have contained many faint premonitions of it, or may have been but 
an echo from the Mosaic Code, for, in spite of big-mouthed claims, 
it is far from being squarely ascertained which of them has th^ 
safe priority. The unity of the Godhead, his spirituality, a weekly 
rest-day, reverence for parents, truthfulness, honest dealings, sa- 
credness of matrimony, of life, of property, etc., are moral cate- 
gories of eternal reason. Hence some heathen priests and philos- 
ophers could and may have had and even uttered some faint ideas 
about such rules of conduct. Indeed, the hieroglyphic and cunei- 
form records of the old world really and daily bring to light such 
evidences, and this corroborates the Sinaic doctrines. But no- 
where do we find that they were the practice and the fundamental 
principles of any people and state. We find them scattered and 
far between, in mouldering Babylonian or Egyptian libraries and 
rituals, intermingled with mean superstitions and petty practices, 
as mere priestly craft, reveries or philosophical desiderata. Is- 
rael is the people and Mosaism is the realistic Code, where these 
norms are laid dowm as principles, as primary rules of conduct, as 
socio-ethical conditio sine quae non, as the corner-stone under- 
lying the very foundations of human society. That is the dis- 
tinctive mark of Israel : "Ye shall be unto Me a kingdom of 
priests and holy nation." (II M., xix, 6). That was the lullaby 
at his cradle, the motto of his existence, his banner for now 
thirty-five centuries as a world-embracing faith. 

The next scriptural portion, Mishpatim, II M., xxi, 25, is the 
necessary sequel, the logical result, development and complement 
of the great Mosaic organic law, the Ten Words. Mishpatim is 



1 Religion of Babylon by Maspero, Book of the Dead. 



298 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

the code of law, an outline of principles to decide between right 
and wrong, mine and thine, to maintain order and justice in a 
young community, to decide causes private and public, civil, po- 
litical, penal, industrial, agrarian. Finally we have analyzed 
Teriima, the place, arrangements and ideas underlying the insti- 
tution of the Tabernacle ; Israel's model sanctuary, his first shrine 
of national worship and instruction, where his great doctrine, his 
gradually developed laws and the entire polity of early Mosaism 
and later Judaism were to be preserved, unfolded, studied and 
inculcated. 

SURVEY OF THE VOLUME AND CONCLUSION. 

At the conclusion of this study, let us have a cursory retrospect 
and survey the chief features of the different themes which 
have engrossed our attention. Section, Jethro, exhibits to us, in 
first instance, the Decalogue. What are its leading traits? They 
are as follows : God is the basis of the universe, the state and 
man. God is the source of all, mind and matter, spirit, force and 
body ; life and all existence ; wisdom, truth, right, duty, freedom, 
will and conscience. God is not identical with, or absorbed by 
the universe. He is not its law, in the abstract, nor merely its 
moral order. He is the origin and the creator of all ; spontaneous, 
omniscient, omnipotent, and all-benign. He is pure spirituality, 
eternity, omnipresence ; alone the Providence of the universe, of 
mankind, of Israel. 

The Sabbath is instituted for bodily rest, moral, mental, social, 
spiritual uplifting of man, vindicating to him the right, duty, time 
and possibility to recuperate, strengthen and cultivate himself; to 
strive after truth, wisdom and happiness, thus to develop and 
transform his native animality into rational humanity, the off- 
spring of the ape into the son of God. 

The world is pervaded, spiritualized and upheld by the 
divine presence, and man is vindicated as a moral, rational and 
spiritual being; the universe is declared not to be a self-moving 
machine, a huge automatic clockwork, and man is uplifted from the 
rest of the animal realm and declared to be a rational, ethical, 
free and responsible agent; the Decalogue sanctifies all existence 
and permeates all man's feelings, acts and entire life by the faith in 
and the Providence of God, and with the ideas of justice and 



SURVEY OF THE VOLUME AND CONCLUSION. 299 

duty, equity, purity and holiness. It consecrates the relations of 
husband and wife, of parent and child, of citizen and common- 
wealth, of pure habits, desires and affections, of work and prop- 
erty, of truthfulness and purity of feelings and thoughts, en- 
nobling and translucidating all with the new truly Mosaic axioms 
of duty and responsibility, of obligation ever corresponding to 
right, the two ever going together in civilized society. 

By this is not claimed, I emphasize again and again, that Mo- 
saism is the inventor of these social categories and should take 
out a patent of proprietory right upon such and similar tenets. 
No ! The Decalogue is not an invention, nor even a sudden dis- 
covery. But it is the slow and gradual result of long and deep 
observation, meditation and experiences, gathered for thousands 
of years, and finally reduced to and promulgated as an organic 
social code during the great, creative and constructive period of 
Sinai.i 

We emphasize and repeat that it is not an invention by any one 
single man, but the solemn confirmation and by divine authority, 
of the universal basis of civilized society, re-echoed, reverberated 
and sanctioned at the start of Israel's national existence. The 
Decalogue is a category of eternal reason, benevolence and equity, 
repeated and promulgated by the Mosaic lawgiver as the funda- 
mental law of Israel's society, state and church. And since it is 
the eternal norm of divine reason, therefore we find it pervading, 
at least vaguely and in general outline, also in the sacred books of 
Egypt and Babylonia ; of Zoroaster, Manu and Buddha, of Pythag- 
oras and Lao-Tze, of Plato and Confucius. The Ten- Words-code 
is not a plagiarism upon Babylonian inscriptions, or the Egyptian 
Book of the Dead, or any other cuneiform, hieroglyphic, etc., Htera- 
ture, but it emanated from the One Supreme Sacred Source of all 
law and reason. And this makes the Sinaic revelation even more im- 
portant, since it is not a novelty, but the outcome and result, the 
world-aspect, Welt-Anschauung, the seal and confirmation of the 
universal law of reason and morality, promulgated as the ructt- 
mentary, organic law of the newly constituted Hebraic nation. 

All the rays of light, truth and holiness which had irradiated 
in prehistoric times from all the sages and civilizations of the 



iThe Scattered moral precepts in Babylonian and Egyptian litera- 
tures never rose so high. First of all, the Pentateuch postulated duty and 
responsibility as absolute norms. Alone the Decalogue bids: Tkou 
Shalt! 



300 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

ancient world, were selected, gathered and purified, sifted and 
distilled, harmonized and crystalized in the revelation during the 
Sinaic epoch. Scattered elements thereof one may find in the lit- 
erature of China, Egypt and Babylon, Persia, India, Rome, Greece 
and Phoenicia. But to select, gather, sift and combine all that 
into one harmonious whole, in a succinct, small compass, as one 
organic code, accessible to and comprehensible by the people, re- 
tainable in the memory of the humblest and give it that solemnity, 
publicity, authenticity, as the supreme national code and doctrine, 
binding upon all for all times and places — that is the import of the 
Sinaic Decalogue, and that is the merit of Israel. 

THE CIVIL CODE. PERSONAL FREEDOM. 

After the doctrines contained in the pericope, Jethro, comes the 
Civil Code, Mishpatim. What are its leading principles? They 
are shortly these : Liberty, a Hebrew can and shall never be en- 
slaved ; he may alienate and hire out his work, for six years, in the 
seventh he must go free. He can hire out his person or his labor, 
but he can not sell himself, nor can any one buy him as a piece 
of goods, or chattel. (II M., xxi, 1-5.) 

The less can a Hebrew woman be sold and made any one's 
property. When a minor, poor and sold by her father, her master, 
or his son, are in fairness presumed to marry her; then she must 
be treated by them as any other marriageable girl. If that tacit 
condition, that a priori expectation be not fulfilled, then she shall 
go free, the master has lost her purchase money. (II M., xxi, 
7-12.) 

FREEDOM OF THE SOIL. 

This absolute liberty of man and woman is solidly based upon 
another Mosaic freedom, quite unique in ancient history, to which 
no other lawgiver, priest or philosopher ever gave utterance. 
Even the noblest and best thinkers of old, acknowledged the legiti- 
macy of force, the right of the stronger to domineer, and the 
duty — not alone the prudence — of the weaker to yield and obey. 
Neither the wise, good and ideal Socrates and Plato, nor the more 
realistic Aristotle demurred from that iron axiom : Ultima ratio, 
ms. The world and its fullness, the soil, man and his work, all be- 
long to the victor. Mosaism alone states otherwise. (II M., ix, 29.) 



FREEDOM OF THE SOIL 301 

"Thou shalt know that to Ihvh belonj^s the earth — (II M., 
xix, 5.) To Me appertains all the land.— (Ill M., xxv, 23.) The 
ground shall not be sold for ever, for Mine is the earth, ye are 
but my settlers and tenants." — Hence come the year of release 
and the Jubilee ; the right of redemption of the family farm ; the 
prohibition to make profit or interest on money, goods and fruit 
of the soil, the veto against enslaving a fellow citizen ; of abusing, 
misusing, vexing or over-working him. Hence the reservation 
of parts of the crops for the poor, the stranger, the Levite, the 
widow, the orphan, etc. The Pentateuch alone states and declares, 
plainly and boldly, not afraid of being ostracized as a socialist, 
that to God belongs the soil, that the ground is merely let out to 
the people, to be distributed in equal shares among all the male 
citizens, so as to constitute a hereditary, inalienable and perpetual 
family acre, which shall be cultivated and rendered productive by 
its temporary holder or farmer, to be left intact to his children 
and children's children. Such a life-tenant could pawn or sell or 
forfeit by law the crops of his tenancy for six years, no longer. 
On the seventh year, the alienated family-field became free and 
returned to its legitimate previous proprietor, its first occupant. 
Thus land, farm, man, woman, work were declared free and in- 
alienable, none born a pauper, none a lord; a man for every 
woman, work for every working mxan, all are free and equal ; no 
means to buy up votes, and no want to mduce self-asservation. 
Free men, free women, free soil ; servants and property they were 
of God alone ! No hum.an enslavement and no landgrabbing or 
accaparation were tolerated. No plutocracy with monopolies and 
despotism on one hand, and no pauperism, meanness and self- 
surrender on the other hand. A free state, with a free soil, free 
labor for a free society of free and equal citizens. 

This bold doctrine of free soil, the land belonging alone to its 
Maker, God, that man owns only what he has produced, whilst 
the ground is but usurped, never made by man, we find also in 
the Talmud, overlooked by the commentators, or from timidity 
passed in silence during baronial times. It is in the Babyl. Sanhe- 
drin (58 b.) legitimately deduced from a pregnant biblical verse: 
"The strong holds the ground and the privileged one occupies it." 
(Job. xxii, 9.) This R. Eleaser correctly expounds : "The ground 



302 EXODUS, !-.IOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

is given away onl)' to the man of strong arms."^ Only the rob- 
bers first laid claim to the soil. J. J. Rousseau opined the same : 
''The strong made an enclosure, saying this ground is mine." The 
Psalm, xii, 11: Who (diligently) works on his soil, will have 
plenty of bread to eat, R. Lakish interprets : He who slavelike 
works (hard on) the soil, will satiate himself with bread; if not, 
not.2 The Pentateuch repeatedly threatens Israel with the loss 
of his country, if he is disobedient to God, if he is not resting 
during the year of release, or if not freeing the Hebrew servant 
after six years, or if serving strange gods ; viz. : God is considered 
as the liege lord of the community and the country, whose lands 
he has bestowed upon his vassal-people, on condition that they 
recognize him as supreme king, devoutly serve him as such 
and respect the freedom of their fellow-citizens. Now, as a re- 
bellious vassal forfeits his freehold, even so Israel, when re- 
bellious to the commandments of his King. So, too, the prophet 
Jeremiah (xxxiv, 10) denounced the Judaean nobles for not re- 
leasing their Hebrew slaves, threatening them with the loss of 
their country, their lives and their own liberty in just retribution. 
Thus we find the freedom of land, of work, of man and of woman 
as one set of correlated principles in Mosaism. 

THE PRINCIPLE OF EQUALITY. 

After the doctrines on the freedom of the soil, men and work, 
comes the other principle, equality. Every man being the son 
and servant of God, is a free citizen, and every citizen is the 
equal of his fellow-man, he is exactly as much worth as his neigh- 
bor, in rights and in duties, in emoluments and in obligations ; 
there are to be no classes and no masses, no aristocracy, plebeians 
or pariahs ; the state is a democracy, governed by the elders, selected 
by universal suffrage, and all are equally to obey the law, viz. : 
The will of God, interpreted and executed by the elders. There 
is, indeed, besides the laity, a priesthood, of the tribe of Levi, but 
they were far from being an aristocracy. They had nothing in 
common with the Brahmanic, Magian or Druidic castes. It is but 



Says R. Eleaser niniT 

sb sb DK...Dn^ v^^' ^2V2 lovy nj^y dx 2 

In Hebrew the same root means to work and to serve. 



EQUALITY. 303 

later that they obtained some sacerdotal privileges, after their 
connection with and partisanship for the Davidian dynasty. For 
long they were rather counted with the poor, the widows and 
orphans, later they were endowed with but scant territories, scat- 
tered throughout all the twelve clans. As such they are depicted 
in the blessing of Jacob (I M., xlix, 7.) Their ascendancy and 
privileges began with the Davidian dynasty, having sided with it 
during its troubles with the house of Saul. With the destruction 
of the kingdom of Judaea, and the collapse of the Davidians, the 
Ahronides assumed a princely importance, during the entire sec- 
ond Jewish commonwealth. Withall pure, original Mosaism was 
a democracy, royalty was an innovation ; almost a rebellion against 
God (I Sam., 8.) 

The principle of the equality of all the citizens before the law 
is forcibly illustrated by the legal formula pervading the entire 
Mosaic code: ''Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, etc." (II M., xxi, 24.) 
The code Mishpatim, as the entire Pentateuch, frequently recurs to 
it. The rigid axiom is talion, retaliation, in nature ; not by com- 
pensation in money or any sort of compromise. The rabbinical 
code changed the talion axiom into compensation, still ''eye for 
eye and tooth for tooth" is the ideal formula of equality, the un- 
compromising rule of democracy. . . . Indeed, if one man is as good 
as his neighbor, then one man's eye or tooth is as good as his 
neighbor's eye or tooth. Whilst if you substitute a money com- 
pensation and with different ratings, then equality and democracy 
are destroyed. The Christian founder, a moralist and idealist, 
aiming at establishing the Messianic empire, the kingdom of 
heaven on earth, despising the world, work, property, going-to- 
law, he, member of a society of monastics (Essenians), on a com- 
munistic pattern, a Philanstere, preached : "Whosoever takes away 
thy coat, let him have thy cloak too. Who smites thee on thy 
right cheek, offer him thy left one. Resist not evil." (Math. V, 
xxxviii, 41; Luke vi, 29.) The world is not worth while wran- 
gling f or . . . But pray, fast and hasten on the advent of the king- 
dom of heaven. . .That was his ideal object for his ideal world, 
not for the real one. But with such bases, views and assump- 
tions, you will never build up a human society, a live-state. And, 
indeed, it has been truthfully remarked by Jean Jacques Rous- 
seau and other clear-sighted writers that there has never been 
reared up a truly Christian state in the world — except, perhaps, 



304 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

the monastery, or theoretically, the Catholic church — if there all 
ambition and politics were left out. Even America, apparently a 
democracy, does not stand on Christian ethics as formulated by the 
founder. Strict right and talion alone are the principles of human 
society, that alone guarantees equality. The strong ones steal 
coat and cloak, smite on the right and left cheek. Society must be 
shielded by talion, or anarchy will ensue. 

FRATERNITY AND SOLIDARITY. 

The next principle of Mishpatim is sympathy, humanity, fellow- 
ship, social solidarity, the duty each citizen has towards the com- 
munity, his neighbor. Correctly reasoning, he has an interest, 
and hence a duty to help render him happy, as much as in his 
power. The fact is that, really, human happiness is inter-depend- 
ent, solidary. And moreover, when one social member is wronged, 
made wretched, entire society is a party to the wrong, willfully or 
not, by commission or omission ; hence it is responsible and must 
redress it, or it will at last suffer for it. Thus the misfortune of 
each man, each a social member, falls back on the entire society. 
Therefore must all society help alleviate the misfortunes of each 
member. Sympathy, charity, altruistic helpfulness are therefore 
viewed in the Mishpatim code, not as alms-giving, but as a duty 
of the rich towards the poor, as the rich man's duty and the 
poor's right. ^ It is the poor man's minimum right, it is the least 
which can be done for him . . . God gave the land and its harvests 
to the community on condition that part of those bounties go to 
the poor, the uneducated, the ostracised. 

How much superior this political economy is to other views 
and codices, we have considered in our "Biblical Legislation." It is 
superior because it fathoms the bottom and ventilates the cause 
of the evil. The Mosaic sympathy and humanity is not degrading, 
wretched almsgiving. It is constructed upon the solid rock of 
fellowship and humane solidarity, upon common sense and altru- 
ism. It is not sentimental charity, not dictated by mere pity, less so 
by ostentation; but as an act of private justice, and redress for 
public wrong, each single social member magnanimously offering 
atonement and restitution for corporate social injustice committed. 



iJoseph Chamberlain once said that charity is the ransom of the 
rich from the poor. That is poor charity and poor political economy. 



FRATERXITY AND SOLIDARITY 305 

On the other hand, true beneficence is prompted by consummate 
prudence, by intelHgent self-interest, a deed with the rational mo- 
tive that my neighbor's well-being or wretchedness strongly re- 
flect upon myself, that without recurring to communism, the 
state is one integral, industrial, economical, ethical and political 
body ; that altruism is at one with wise egoism ; that my own true 
interests, in the long run, are my neighbor's true interests ; that 
altruism and egoism, both wisely and harmoniously combined, 
cover and supplement each other. This is the political economy, 
the social philosophy of the Mosaic Humanity, of the laws of the 
pericope Mishpatim and of the entire Pentateuch. That is closely 
elaborated in many Talmudical treatises, it passed to other legis- 
lations as charity laws, gradually enlightening political econo- 
mists and philanthropists. 

Once more, let us not make any comparisons between that and 
the communistic socio-ethical teachings of the New Testament. 
The aim and scope of the Old and of the New Testaments are dif- 
ferent, hence also their miCans, their sociology. Mosaism aimed at 
founding a state, establishing a people, with earthly citizens, with 
whom work, property, marriage, family, right and self are funda- 
mental. The founders of Christianity despised the actual world, 
hated the entire Roman and the upper Judaean society, despaired 
of and aimed at their subversion and improving men into saints, 
angels fit for their hoped for "kingdom of heaven," the general 
Utopia of the dreamers and schemers, Jew and Gentile, of that 
age of Roman suprem.acy, violence and visible decomposition. 
The Essenio-Christian scheme was the antidote of the universal 
corruption. The ''kingdom of heaven" was their salto niortale and 
poverty their supreme virtue. Another was the scope of the Old 
Testament. Moses gave laws for men, for a live-state, with citi- 
zens struggling for existence, striving for happiness, in this pos- 
sible, realistic world, even under the rule of the Herodians and 
Caesars. Christianity preached ideals for a monastery with 
Essenians and angels. 

The later leaders of the church, the Constantines, the Patricians 
and the hierarchs, indeed, talked of the ideal hum.anity of the pre- 
vious Messianic ages and doctrines, but really acted upon the 
polity of the Caesars and Borgias. Hence Mosaism teaches (HI 
M., xix, 19) : "Thou shalt not hate thy brother in secret. Thou 
shalt neither bear a grudge on him, nor shalt thou be revengeful." 



3o6 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

Expostulate thy cause with him, frankly insist upon being righted 
if thou feelest wronged. Christianity recommends : Offer the left 
cheek to him who smites thee on the right one, etc. The first 
teaches to pardon and condone, the latter ordaineth: Love thy 
enemy. (Luke vi, 27.) All these discrepancies are easily ex- 
plained when we consider the realistic scope of the Sinaic law and 
the ideal scheme of the builders of the heavenly kingdom. The 
Mosaic doctrine aims at a reality ; the Messianic one at a Utopia. 

Thus these far-reaching schemes of human brotherhood, social 
equality, political liberty and universal solidarity, at least within 
the limits of the Hebraic nationality, are decidedly biblical. They 
are the fundamental principles of the code of Mishpatim. They 
are the necessary and logical developments of the Ten Command- 
m.ents. They are not the product of later times and peoples, not 
of free and ever-militant Greece, not of selfish, entangling, bloody 
Rome, not of the barbarous Teutons, not even of free Switzerland 
or Holland, not of the American and French revolutions. No, they 
are essentially Mosaic. They sprang from the sociological and ethi- 
cal genius of the Hebraic ethnos and psyche ; they grew upon the 
tree of the Pentateuch. While modern freedom with Lessing, Rous- 
seau and Mirabeau, with the Amercian and French revolutioniz- 
ing human fraternity ideas, while even the nineteenth century's 
regenerating views of Lasalle, Virchow, Bamberger — are the late 
fruit gradually cu11q4 ^i^d gathered from that venerable millenial 
Biblical tree, whose roots and ramifications reach back to Sinai. 

The third of our Trilogy is the pericope or section termed 
Teruma(II M. xxv, etc.), treating of the erection of the Mishkan, 
Tabernacle, a sacred tent claimed as corresponding to the pro- 
portions of the universe. Its three principal parts, Court, Holy 
Place and Holy of Holies answer to the ancient division of heaven, 
earth and sea. Whilst from another standpoint, that illustrates in 
solid matter, the ideas of : Mind pervading the universe, creation 
by God pirituality of man, sanctified by the Sabbath, sacredness 
of human affairs, as life, marriage, parenthood, property, purity, 
veracity. And all this underlies and substantiates human free- 
dom, equality and dignity, without which man is a brute. These 
ideas the Tabernacle represents in its materials and sacred furni- 
ture, a court, a sanctuary and a Holy of Holies. Next, the golden 
table with the twelve shewbread, represents man and his bodily 
needs; the candelabrum means light and reason; the altar, our 



FRATERNITY AND SOLIDARITY 307 

longing for the divine; the Ark, revelation realized; the Mercy- 
seat and Cherubim : revelations to come, future inspirations, infinite 
progressiveness, perfectibility, the eternal connection of the hu- 
man mind with its sacred Source, the Intellectus Activus, the Su- 
preme Mind. 

And this is the sense of our theme: "They shall make Me a 
sanctuary, that I dwell among them." Indeed, a place containing 
doctrine, law and worship is the sanctuary where the Deity dwells. 
A sumptuous structure without these three is a palace, not a sanc- 
tuary, to which our verse cannot apply. A proud hall, with costly, 
sumptuous furniture, a magnificent dome, elegant music and fine 
oratory — but without doctrine, faith and truth-seeking, is a palace, 
a temple of Mammon, vainglory and hypocrisy, our theme has 
nothing in common with such a show. 

The temple discussed in these pages, once a modest tent or tab- 
ernacle, has been the seed and pioneer of millions of houses of 
worship, aspiring to the very same objects : doctrine, worship, truth- 
seeking, improvement. It developed into the magnificent temples of 
Solomon, Ezra-Nehemia, the Maccabeans and Herod. It was the 
seed of thousands of synagogues in the dispersion. It expanded into 
the millions of churches and mosques, all over the entire terres- 
trial globe. Originally it was a transferable portative tent, later 
a magnificent structure on Mount Moriah. It wandered then with 
the Israelites, the Judaeans and finally the Jews of the dispersion. 
But it grew ever vaster and more important. The Christian 
Church and the Mohammedan Mosque took Israel's sanctuary as 
their model for myriads of sacred structures over the entire habit- 
able globe. Its worship was first administered by a few descendants 
of Ahron, Kohanim, kinsman of Moses. Then this priesthood of 
the Ahronidae passed in the diaspora, actually to all Israel. Soon 
it gained over the Occident as Christians, and the Orient as Mos- 
lems. It refreshes the souls of the most civilized portions of man- 
kind of all the continents and the islands of the earth. Every- 
where, essentially teaching, with various local colorings and dra- 
peries, the same doctrine of the Decalogue : The one Divine Mind, 
the one human nature and interest, the one code of rights and 
duties, as in our Trilogy, the civilizing import of worship: Man 
in communion with the Divine. 



3o8 EXODUS, MOSES AND THE DECALOGUE. 

We have concluded our survey of the leading aspects of the 
Ten Commandments, in conjunction with our two preceding vol- 
umes, on the civil, political and agrarian Laws, and on the Human- 
ity and Benevolence ones of the Pentateuch. We have admired 
their divine, uncommon, common-sense ; their justice tempered 
with mercy ; befitting all times, peoples and countries ; containing 
the elements of the world-religion, for all mankind ; incomparably 
superior to all the antique legislations, and in many regards not 
reached even by present codices which are yet brimful with in- 
justices and inequalities on account of creedal, national, class and 
country prejudices. 

Now, Reader, ponder ! Can Israel, shall he, nevertheless, yield 
to millennial misunderstandings, give up that Pentateuchal code, 
these prophetico-Mosaic doctrines and pass over to the Major- 
ity?. . .Or shall not rather the Majority consider their own best 
interests, give honor to the truth and accept the doctrines of the 
Minority? Would it not be time, after those barren discussions 
of fifteen long centuries about Three and One, to lend ear and 
heart to the call of truth, reason, common sense and universal 
peace, to the identical call of the antique prophets, the apostles 
and the modern sages, scientists and philanthropists, all advo- 
cating the Mosaico-prophetic platform, containing the elements of 
civilized man's reHgion? . . . That call was uttered by (Isaiah, II, 
2) : "It will come to pass in the far future, when the great na- 
tions will proclaim, let us rise to the Mount of Ihvh, that He 
may teach us in His ways and we follow in His paths . . . for from 
Zion Cometh the doctrine and the Word of God from Jerusalem. . . 
that he be our Arbiter and we do away with sword, strife and 
controversy." — Mankind has learned the prophetico-lNIosaic les- 
sons during these last two thousand years. Would it not be time 
to act upon them ? Reader, pause and consider ! . . . 



ERRATA. 



Page Read Instead of 

12— Middle dominant one — the Pharaoh. . dominat one. The Pharaoh. 

17 — Below flock of Israel! And in that., flock of Israel, and in that 

18 — " dispelling despondency scattering despondencj-- 

23 — " My Spirit. (Sacharia) .My Spirit (Sashana) 

39 — Above pauperization, dearth pauperization, death 

53 & 55 — Above. Hague arbitration Biblical Teachings 

87— Middle Charta Magna Charter-Magna 

95 — Belowv of sacrifice and altruism of sacrifice, austerity 

110— Middle Keep my Sabbaths; Keep my Sabbath. 

110 — Below of the prohibition of prohibition 

134 — Above .'All-presence of Deity all-presence of Diety. 

139 — Below with the Hindu with the Minda 

140 — " Philosophy, Qabbala Philosophy Gabbala 

148 — Middle Apotheosis of the Apothesis of the 

149 — ^Below in preference to in preferment to 

154 — Above a recognized tenet a recognzed 

156 — Middle solidly emphasize stolidly emphasize 

158 — " But it is written TBut is written 

164 — Above 39 stripes 30 stripes 

174— Middle by the Shemites by the Shomits 

174 — Middle.. . . enfranchising mankind enfranchising mankind." 

179 — " manual and field manual field 

193 — Below minor legalistic legislatic 

201 — " neglectful and disrespectful, .forgetful and. . . 

203 — Middle their labors, efforts labors, results 

208 — Below and auto-da-fe's auto dafes 

214 — Above avenges wronged innocence, .avenges innocence 

215 — Middle classes and privileges classes and masses 

226 — " one of spirituality one of spiritually 

236 — " world and polytheism .world and poytheism 

238 — " in the Capitol in the Capital 

244 — " but were reputed were reported 

253 — Middle Disraeli, Jessel? Disraeli, Jessel. 

253— " Milhamoth Ihvh Milhamoth, Ihvh 

260 — Below appreciating their labors his labors 

266— Middle to the Deity to the Diety 

270— Below... n"iin rnc nnin no 



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